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SESAME  AND  LILIES 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 

TWO  LECTXJRES  BY 

JOHN  RUSKIN 


Portland,  Maine 

Mdccccp 


This  Second  Edition  on 
Van  Gelder  paper  con' 
sists  of  92  s  copies. 


GIFT 


'9o£~ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prefaces  : 

I      TO   THE   EDITION    OF    1882  .  ix 

II      TO   THE   FIRST   EDITION       .  .         XV 

Lecture  I  —  Sesame 
OF  kings'  treasuries    ...        I 

Lecture  II  —  Lilies 
OF  queens'  garden        ...      80 


305 


PREFACES 


PREFACE 

TO   THE   EDITION    OF    1882 

THE  present  edition  of  *  Sesame  and  Lilies,* 
issued  at  the  request  of  an  aged  friend, 
is  reprinted  without  change  of  a  word  from 
the  first  small  edition  of  the  book,  withdraw- 
ing only  the  irrelevant  preface  respecting 
tours  in  the  Alps,  which  however  if  the 
reader  care  to  see,  he  will  find  placed  with 
more  propriety  in  the  second  volume  of 
'  Deucalion/  i  The  third  lecture,  added  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  large  edition  of  my 
works,  and  the  gossiping  introduction  pre- 
fixed to  that  edition,  are  withdrawn  also,  not 
as  irrelevant,  but  as  following  the  subject 
too  far,  and  disturbing  the  simplicity  in 
which  the  two  original  lectures  dwell  on 
,their  several  themes,  —  the  majesty  of  the 


I  This  "  irrelevant  preface  "  is  far  too  exquisitely 
written  not  to  be  reprinted  here,  and  we  therefore 
include  it.  The  third  lecture  and  "  the  gossiping 
introduction "  we  believe  were  wisely  omitted  by 
Mr.  Ruskin. 


influence  of  good  books,  and  of  good  women, 
if  we  know  how  to  read  them,  and  how  to 
honour. 

I  might  just  as  well  have  said,  the  influ- 
ence of  good  men,  and  good  women,  since 
the  best  strength  of  a  man  is  shown  in  his 
intellectual  work,  as  that  of  a  woman  in 
her  daily  deed  and  character;  and  I  am 
somewhat  tempted  to  involve  myself  in  the 
debate  which  might  be  imagined  in  illustrat- 
ing these  relations  of  their  several  powers, 
because  only  the  other  day  one  of  my  friends 
put  me  in  no  small  pet  by  saying  that  he 
thought  my  own  influence  was  much  more  in 
being  amiable  and  obliging  than  in  writing 
books.  Admitting,  for  the  argument's  sake, 
the  amiableness  and  obligingness,  I  begged 
him,  with  some  warmth,  to  observe  that 
there  were  myriads  of  at  least  equally  good- 
natured  people  in  the  world  who  had  merely 
become  its  slaves,  if  not  its  victims,  but  that 
the  influence  of  my  books  was  distinctly  on 
the  increase,  and  I  hoped  —  etc.,  etc.  —  it  is 
no  matter  what  more  I  said,  or  intimated; 
but  it  much  matters  that  the  young  reader 
of  the  following  essays  should  be  confirmed 
in  the  assurance  on  which  all  their  pleading 
depends,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  essen- 
tial good,  and  as  essential  evil,  in  books,  in 
art,  and   in  character ;  —  that  this  essential 


goodness  and  badness  are  independent  of 
epochs,  fashions,  opinions,  or  revolutions; 
and  that  the  present  extremely  active  and 
ingenious  generation  of  young  people,  in 
thanking  Providence  for  the  advantages  it 
has  granted  them  in  the  possession  of  steam 
whistles  and  bicycles,  need  not  hope  materi- 
ally to  add  to  the  laws  of  beauty  in  sound  or 
grace  in  motion,  which  were  acknowledged 
in  the  days  of  Orpheus,  and  of  Camilla. 

But  I  am  brought  to  more  serious  pause 
than  I  had  anticipated  in  putting  final  accent 
on  the  main  sentences  in  this  —  already,  as 
men  now  count  time,  old  —  book  of  mine, 
because  since  it  was  written,  not  only  these 
untried  instruments  of  action,  but  many 
equally  novel  methods  of  education  and 
systems  of  morality  have  come  into  vogue, 
not  without  a  certain  measure  of  prospect- 
ive good  in  them;  —  college  education  for 
women,  —  out-of -college  education  for  men: 
positivism  with  its  religion  of  humanity, 
and  negativism  with  its  religion  of  Chaos, — 
and  the  like,  from  the  entanglement  of 
which  no  young  people  can  now  escape,  if 
they  would ;  together  with  a  mass  of  realistic, 
or  materialistic,  literature  and  art,  founded 
mainly  on  the  theory  of  nobody's  having 
any  will,  or  needing  any  master;  much  of  it 
extremely  clever,  irresistibly  amusing,   and 


PREFACE 

enticingly  pathetic;  but  which  is  all  never- 
theless the  mere  whirr  and  dust -cloud  of  a 
dissolutely  reforming  and  vulgarly  manufac- 
turing age,  which  when  its  dissolutions  are 
appeased,  and  its  manufactures  purified,  must 
return  in  due  time  to  the  understanding  of 
the  things  that  have  been,  and  are,  and 
shall  be  hereafter,  though  for  the  present 
concerned  seriously  with  nothing  beyond  its 
dinner  and  its  bed. 

I  must  therefore,  for  honesty's  sake,  no 
less  than  intelligibility's,  warn  the  reader  of 
*  Sesame  and  Lilies,'  that  the  book  is  wholly 
of  the  old  school;  that  it  ignores,  without 
contention  or  regret,  the  ferment  of  sur- 
rounding elements,  and  assumes  for  perennial 
some  old-fashioned  conditions  and  existences 
which  the  philosophy  of  to-day  imagines  to 
be  extinct  with  the  Mammoth  and  the  Dodo. 

Thus  the  second  lecture,  in  its  very  title, 
"  Queens'  Gardens,"  takes  for  granted  the 
persistency  of  Queenship,  and  therefore  of 
Kingship,  and  therefore  of  Courtliness  or 
Courtesy,  and  therefore  of  Uncourtliness 
or  Rusticity.  It  assumes,  with  the  ideas  of 
higher  and  lower  rank,  those  of  serene 
authority  and  happy  submission;  of  Riches 
and  Poverty  w^ithout  dispute  for  their  rights, 
and  of  Virtue  and  Vice  without  confusion  of 
their  natures. 


And  farther,  it  must  be  premised  that  the 
book  is  chiefly  written  for  young  people 
belonging  to  the  upper,  or  undistressed 
middle,  classes;  who  may  be  supposed  to 
have  choice  of  the  objects  and  command  of 
the  industries  of  their  life.  It  assumes  that 
many  of  them  will  be  called  to  occupy 
responsible  positions  in  the  world,  and  that 
they  have  leisure,  in  preparation  for  these,  to 
play  tennis,  or  to  read  Plato. 

Therefore  also  —  that  they  have  Plato  to 
read  if  they  choose,  with  lawns  on  which 
they  may  run,  and  woods  in  which  they  may 
muse.  It  supposes  their  father's  library  to 
be  open  to  them,  and  to  contain  all  that  is 
necessary  for  their  intellectual  progress, 
without  the  smallest  dependence  on  monthly 
parcels  from  town. 

These  presupposed  conditions  are  not 
extravagant  in  a  country  which  boasts  of  its 
wealth,  and  which,  without  boasting,  still 
presents  in  the  greater  number  of  its  landed 
households,  the  most  perfect  types  of  grace 
and  peace  which  can  be  found  in  Europe. 

I  have  only  to  add  farther,  respecting  the 
book,  that  it  was  written  while  my  energies 
were  still  unbroken  and  my  temper  unfet- 
tered ;  and  that,  if  read  in  connection  with 
'  Unto  this  Last,'  it  contains  the  chief  truths 
I  have  endeavoured  through  all  my  past  life 


to  display,  and  which,  under  the  warnings  I 
have  received  to  prepare  for  its  close,  I  am 
chiefly  thankful  to  have  learnt  and  taught. 

AVALLON, 

August  24th,  1882. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE   FIRST  EDITION 

A  PASSAGE  in  the  fifty-first  page  of  this 
book,  referring  to  Alpine  travellers, 
will  fall  harshly  on  the  reader's  ear  since  it 
has  been  sorrowfully  enforced  by  the  deaths 
on  Mont  Cervin.  I  leave  it,  nevertheless,  as 
it  stood,  for  I  do  not  now  write  unadvisedly, 
and  think  it  wrong  to  cancel  what  has  once 
been  thoughtfully  said  ;  but  it  must  not  so 
remain  without  a  few  added  words. 

No  blame  ought  to  attach  to  the  Alpine 
tourist  for  incurring  danger.  There  is 
usually  sufficient  cause,  and  real  reward,  for 
all  difficult  work ;  and  even  were  it  other- 
wise, some  experience  of  distinct  peril,  and 
the  acquirement  of  habits  of  quick  and 
calm  action  in  its  presence,  are  necessary 
elements,  at  some  period  of  life,  in  the 
formation  of  manly  character.  The  blame 
of  bribing  guides  into  danger  is  a  singular 
accusation,  in  behalf  of  a  people  who  have 
made  mercenary  soldiers  of  themselves  for 
centuries,   without    any    one's    thinking   of 


giving  their  fidelity  better  employment: 
though,  indeed,  the  piece  of  work  they  did 
at  the  gate  of  the  Tuileries,  however  useless, 
was  no  unwise  one  ;  and  their  lion  of  flawed 
molasse  at  Lucerne,  worthless  in  point  of  art 
though  it  be,  is  nevertheless  a  better  reward 
than  much  pay;  and  a  better  ornament  to 
the  old  town  than  the  Schweizer  Hof,  or 
flat  new  quay,  for  the  promenade  of  those 
travellers  who  do  not  take  guides  into  danger. 
The  British  public  are  however,  at  home, 
so  innocent  of  ever  buying  their  fellow 
creatures*  lives,  that  we  may  justly  expect 
them  to  be  punctilious  abroad  1  They  do 
not,  perhaps,  often  calculate  how  many  souls 
flit  annually,  choked  in  fire-damp  and  sea- 
sand,  from  economically  watched  shafts,  and 
economically  manned  ships ;  nor  see  the  fiery 
ghosts  writhe  up  out  of  every  scuttleful  of 
cheap  coals  :  nor  count  how  many  threads  of 
girlish  life  are  cut  off  and  woven  annually  by 
painted  Fates,  into  breadths  of  ball -dresses  ; 
or  soaked  away,  like  rotten  hemp -fibre,  in 
the  inlet  of  Cocytus  which  overflows  the 
Grass -market  w^here  flesh  is  as  grass.  We 
need  not,  it  seems  to  me,  loudly  blame  any 
one  for  paying  a  guide  to  take  a  brave  walk 
with  him.  Therefore,  gentlemen  of  the 
Alpine  Club,  as  much  danger  as  you  care  to 
face,  by  all  means ;  but,  if  it  please  you,  not 


PREFACE 

SO  much  talk  of  it.  The  real  ground  of 
reprehension  of  Alpine  climbing  is  that,  with 
less  cause,  it  excites  more  vanity  than  any 
other  athletic  skill.  A  good  horseman 
knows  what  it  has  cost  to  make  him  one ; 
everybody  else  knows  it  too,  and  knows 
that  he  is  one ;  he  need  not  ride  at  a  fence 
merely  to  show  his  seat.  But  credit  for 
practice  in  climbing  can  only  be  claimed  after 
success,  which,  though  perhaps  accidental 
and  unmerited,  must  yet  be  attained  at  all 
risks,  or  the  shame  of  defeat  borne  with  no 
evidence  of  the  difficulties  encountered.  At 
this  particular  period,  also,  the  distinction 
obtainable  by  first  conquest  of  a  peak  is  as 
tempting  to  a  traveller  as  the  discovery  of  a 
new  element  to  a  chemist,  or  of  a  new  species 
to  a  naturalist.  Vanity  is  never  so  keenly 
excited  as  by  competitions  which  involve 
chance ;  the  course  of  science  is  continually 
arrested,  and  its  nomenclature  fatally  con- 
fused, by  the  eagerness  of  even  wise  and 
able  men  to  establish  their  priority  in  an 
unimportant  discovery,  or  obtain  vested 
right  to  a  syllable  in  a  deformed  word ;  and 
many  an  otherwise  sensible  person  will  risk 
his  life  for  the  sake  of  a  lion  in  future  guide- 
books, to  the  fact  that  " horn  was  first 

ascended  by  Mr.  X.  in  the  year "  ;  

never  reflecting  that  of  all  the  lines  in  the 


page,  the  one  he  has  thus  wrought  for  will  be 
precisely  the  least  interesting  to  the  reader. 
It  is  not  therefore  strange,  however  much 
to  be  regretted,  that  while  no  gentleman 
boasts  in  other  cases  of  his  sagacity  or  his 
courage  —  while  no  good  soldier  talks  of 
the  charge  he  led,  nor  any  good  sailor  of  the 
helm  he  held,  —  every  man  among  the  Alps 
seems  to  lose  his  senses  and  modesty  with 
the  fall  of  the  barometer,  and  returns  from 
his  Nephelo  -coccygia  brandishing  his  ice  -axe 
in  everybody's  face.  Whatever  the  Alpine 
Club  have  done,  or  may  yet  accomplish,  is  a 
sincere  thirst  for  mountain  knowledge,  and 
in  happy  sense  of  youthful  strength  and  play 
of  animal  spirit,  they  have  done,  and  will 
do,  wisely  and  well ;  but  whatever  they  are 
urged  to  by  mere  sting  of  competition  and 
itch  of  praise,  they  will  do,  as  all  vain  things 
must  be  done  for  ever,  foolishly  and  ill.  It 
is  a  strange  proof  of  that  absence  of  any 
real  national  love  of  science,  of  which  I  have 
had  occasion  to  speak  in  the  text,  that  no 
entire  survey  of  the  Alps  has  yet  been  made 
by  properly  qualified  men ;  and  that,  except 
of  the  chain  of  Chamouni,  no  accurate  maps 
exist,  nor  any  complete  geological  section 
even  of  that.  But  Mr.  Reilly's  survey  of 
that  central  group,  and  the  generally  accu- 
rate information  collected  in  the  guide-book 


published  by  the  Club,  are  honourable 
results  of  English  adventure;  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  continuance  of  such  work 
will  gradually  put  an  end  to  the  vulgar 
excitement  which  looked  upon  the  granite 
of  the  Alps  only  as  an  unoccupied  advertise- 
ment wall  for  chalking  names  upon. 

Respecting  the  means  of  accomplishing 
such  work  with  least  risk,  there  was  a 
sentence  in  the  article  of  our  leading 
public  journal,  which  deserves,  and  requires 
expansion. 

"Their"  (the  Alpine  Club's)  "ropes  must 
not  break." 

Certainly  not!  nor  any  one  else's  ropes, 
if  they  may  be  rendered  unbreakable  by 
honesty  of  make;  seeing  that  more  lives 
hang  by  them  on  moving  than  on  motionless 
seas.  The  records  of  the  last  gale  at  the 
Cape  may  teach  us  that  economy  in  the 
manufacture  of  cables  is  not  always  a  matter 
for  exultation ;  and,  on  the  whole,  it  might 
even  be  well  in  an  honest  country,  sending 
out,  and  up  and  down,  various  lines  east  and 
west,  that  nothing  should  break  ;  banks,  — 
words,  —  nor  dredging  tackle. 

Granting,  however,  such  praise  and  such 
sphere  of  exertion  as  we  thus  justly  may,  to 
the  spirit  of  adventure,  there  is  one  conse- 
quence of  it,  coming  directly  under  my  own 


cognizance,  of  which  I  cannot  but  speak 
with  utter  regret,  —  the  loss,  namely,  of  all 
real  understanding  of  the  character  and 
beauty  of  Switzerland,  by  the  country's 
being  now  regarded  as  half  watering-place, 
half  gymnasium.  It  is  indeed  true  that 
under  the  influence  of  the  pride  which  gives 
poignancy  to  the  sensations  which  others 
cannot  share  with  us  (and  a  not  unjustifiable 
zest  to  the  pleasure  which  we  have  worked 
for),  an  ordinary  traveller  will  usually  observe 
and  enjoy  more  on  a  diflicult  excursion  than 
on  an  easy  one;  and  more  in  objects  to 
which  he  is  unaccustomed  than  in  those 
with  which  he  is  familiar.  He  will  notice 
with  extreme  interest  that  snow  is  white  on 
the  top  of  a  hill  in  June,  though  he  would 
have  attached  little  importance  to  the  same 
peculiarity  in  a  wreath  at  the  bottom  of  a 
hill  in  January.  He  will  generally  find  more 
to  admire  in  a  cloud  under  his  feet,  than  in 
one  over  his  head ;  and,  oppressed  by  the 
monotony  of  a  sky  which  is  prevalently  blue, 
will  derive  extraordinary  satisfaction  from 
its  approximation  to  black.  Add  to  such 
grounds  of  delight  the  aid  given  to  the  effect 
of  whatever  is  impressive  in  the  scenery  of 
the  high  Alps,  by  the  absence  of  ludicrous 
or  degrading  concomitants;  and  it  ceases 
to   be   surprising  that   Alpine  excursionists 


should  be  greatly  pleased,  or  that  they 
should  attribute  their  pleasure  to  some  true 
and  increased  apprehension  of  the  nobleness 
of  natural  scenery.  But  no  impression  can 
be  more  false.  The  real  beauty  of  the  Alps 
is  to  be  seen,  and  seen  only,  where  all  may 
see  it,  the  child,  the  cripple,  and  the  man  of 
grey  hairs.  There  is  more  true  loveliness  in 
a  single  glade  of  pasture  shadowed  by  pine> 
or  gleam  of  rocky  brook,  or  inlet  of  unsullied 
lake  among  the  lower  Bernese  and  Savoyard 
hills,  than  in  the  entire  field  of  jagged  gneiss 
which  crests  the  central  ridge  from  the 
Shreckhorn  to  the  Viso.  The  valley  of 
Cluse,  through  which  unhappy  travellers  con- 
sent now  to  be  invoiced,  packed  in  baskets 
like  fish,  so  only  that  they  may  cheaply  reach, 
in  the  feverish  haste  which  has  become  the 
law  of  their  being,  the  glen  of  Chamouni 
whose  every  lovely  foreground  rock  has  now 
been  broken  up  to  build  hotels  for  them, 
contains  more  beauty  in  half  a  league  of  it, 
than  the  entire  valley  they  have  devastated, 
and  turned  into  a  casino,  did  in  its  uninjured 
pride ;  and  that  passage  of  the  Jura  by  Olten 
(between  Basle  and  Lucerne),  which  is  by 
the  modern  tourist  triumphantly  effected 
through  a  tunnel  in  ten  minutes,  between 
two  piggish  trumpet  grunts  proclamatory  of 
the  ecstatic  transit,  used  to  show  from  every 


PREFACE 

turn  and  sweep  of  its  winding  ascent,  up 
which  one  sauntered,  gathering  wild-flowers, 
for  half  a  happy  day,  diviner  aspects  of  the 
distant  Alps  than  ever  were  achieved  by  toil 
of  limb,  or  won  by  risk  of  life. 

There  is  indeed  a  healthy  enjoyment  both 
in  engineers*  work,  and  in  school -boy  *s  play ; 
the  making  and  mending  of  roads  has  its 
true  enthusiasms,  and  I  have  still  pleasure 
enough  in  mere  scrambling  to  wonder  not  a 
little  at  the  supreme  gravity  with  which  apes 
exercise  their  superior  powers  in  that  kind, 
as  if  profitless  to  them.  But  neither  macad- 
amisation,  nor  tunnelling,  nor  rope  ladders, 
will  ever  enable  one  human  creature  to 
understand  the  pleasure  in  natural  scenery 
felt  by  Theocritus  or  Virgil;  and  I  believe 
the  athletic  health  of  our  school-boys  might 
be  made  perfectly  consistent  with  a  spirit  of 
more  courtesy  and  reverence,  both  for  men 
and  things,"  than  is  recognisable  in  the 
behaviour  of  modern  youth.  Some  year  or 
two  back,  I  was  staying  at  the  Montanvert 
to  paint  Alpine  roses,  and  w^ent  every  day  to 
watch  the  budding  of  a  favourite  bed,  which 
was  rounding  into  faultless  bloom  beneath  a 
cirque  of  rock,  high  enough,  as  I  hoped,  and 
close  enough,  to  guard  it  from  rude  eyes  and 
plucking  hands.     But, 


xxu 


"  Tra  erto  e  piano  era  un  sentiero  ghembo 
Che  ne  condusse  in  fianco  del  a  lacca," 

and  on  the  day  it  reached  the  fulness  of  its 
rubied  fire,  I  was  standing  near  when  it  was 
discovered  by  a  forager  on  the  flanks  of  a 
travelling  school  of  English  and  German 
lads.  He  shouted  to  his  companions,  and 
they  swooped  down  upon  it;  threw  them- 
selves into  it,  rolled  over  and  over  in  it, 
shrieked,  hallooed,  and  fought  in  it,  trampled 
it  down,  and  tore  it  up  by  the  roots;  breath- 
less at  last  with  rapture  of  ravage,  they 
fixed  the  brightest  of  the  remnant  blossoms 
of  it  in  their  caps,  and  went  on  their  way 
rejoicing. 

They  left  me  much  to  think  upon ;  partly 
respecting  the  essential  power  of  the  beauty 
which  could  so  excite  them,  and  partly 
respecting  the  character  of  the  youth  which 
could  only  be  excited  to  destroy.  But  the 
incident  was  a  perfect  type  of  that  irrever- 
ence for  natural  beauty  with  respect  to 
which  I  said  in  the  text,  at  the  place  already 
indicated,  "  You  make  railroads  of  the  aisles 
of  the  cathedrals  of  the  earth,  and  eat  off 
their  altars."  For  indeed  all  true  lovers  of 
natural  beauty  hold  it  in  reverence  so  deep, 
that  they  would  as  soon  think  of  climbing 
the  pillars  of  the  choir  Beauvais  for  a 
gymnastic   exercise,   as  of   making  a  play- 


ground  of  Alpine  snow :  and  they  would  not 
risk  one  hour  of  their  joy  among  the  hill 
meadows  on  a  May  morning,  for  the  fame  or 
fortune  of  having  stood  on  every  pinnacle  of 
the  silver  temple,  and  beheld  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world  from  it.  Love  of  excitement  is 
so  far  from  being  love  of  beauty,  that  it  ends 
always  in  a  joy  in  its  exact  reverse;  joy  in 
destruction, —  as  of  my  poor  roses,  —  or  in 
actual  details  of  death ;  until,  in  the  literature 
of  the  day,  "  nothing  is  too  dreadful,  or  too 
trivial,  for  the  greed  of  the  public."i  And 
in  politics,  apathy,  irreverence,  and  lust  of 
luxury  go  hand  in  hand,  until  the  best 
solemnisation  which  can  be  conceived  for 
the  greatest  event  in  modern  European 
history,  the  crowning  of  Florence  capital  of 
Italy,  is  the  accursed  and  ill-omened  folly  of 
casting  down  her  old  walls,  and  surrounding 
her  with  a  "  boulevard  ;  "  and  this  at  the  very 
time  when  every  stone  of  her  ancient  cities 
is  more  precious  to  her  than  the  gems  of 
a  Urim  breastplate,  and  when  every  nerve 
of  her  heart  and  brain  should  have  been 
strained  to  redeem  her  guilt  and  fulfil  her 
freedom.  It  is  not  by  making  roads  round 
Florence,   but   through    Calabria,   that  she 


I  Pall  Mall  Gazette^  August  15th,  article  on  the 
Forward  murders. 


PREFACE 

should  begin  her  Roman  causeway  work 
again  ;  and  her  fate  points  her  march,  not  on 
boulevards  by  Arno,  but  waist-deep  in  the 
lagoons  at  Venice.  Not  yet,  indeed,  but 
five  years  of  patience  and  discipline  of  her 
youth  would  accomplish  her  power,  and 
sweep  the  martello  towers  from  the  cliffs  of 
Verona,  and  the  ramparts  from  the  marsh  of 
Mestre.  But  she  will  not  teach  her  youth 
that  discipline  on  boulevards. 

Strange,  that  while  we  both,  French  and 
English,  can  give  lessons  in  war,  we  only 
corrupt  other  nations  when  they  imitate 
either  our  pleasures  or  our  industries.  We 
English,  had  we  loved  Switzerland  indeed, 
should  have  striven  to  elevate,  but  not  to 
disturb,  the  simplicity  of  her  people,  by 
teaching  them  the  sacredness  of  their  fields 
and  waters,  the  honour  of  their  pastoral  and 
burgher  life,  and  the  fellowship  in  glory  of 
the  grey  turreted  walls  round  their  ancient 
cities,  with  their  cottages  in  their  fair  groups 
by  the  forest  and  lake.  Beautiful,  indeed, 
upon  the  mountains,  had  been  the  feet  of 
any  who  had  spoken  peace  to  their  children  ; 
who  had  taught  those  princely  peasants  to 
remember  their  lineage,  and  their  league 
with  the  rocks  of  the  field ;  that  so  they 
might  keep  their  mountain  waters  pure,  and 
their   mountain   paths   peaceful,    and    their 


traditions  of  domestic  life  holy.  We  have 
taught  them  (incapable  by  circumstances  and 
position  of  ever  becoming  a  great  commercial 
nation)  all  the  foulness  of  the  modern  lust  of 
wealth,  without  its  practical  intelHgences ; 
and  we  have  developed  exactly  the  weakness 
of  their  temperament  by  which  they  are  liable 
to  meanest  ruin.  Of  the  ancient  architecture 
and  most  expressive  beauty  of  their  country 
there  is  now  little  vestige  left ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  few  reasons  which  console  me  for  the 
advance  of  life,  that  I  am  old  enough  to 
remember  the  time  when  the  sweet  waves  of 
the  Reuss  and  Limmat  (now  foul  with  the 
refuse  of  manufacture)  were  as  crystalline  as 
the  heaven  above  them,  when  her  pictured 
bridges  and  embattled  towers  ran  unbroken 
round  Lucerne ;  when  the  Rhone  flowed  in 
deep-green,  softly  dividing  currents  round 
the  wooded  ramparts  of  Geneva ;  and  when 
from  the  marble  roof  of  the  western  vault  of 
Milan,  I  could  watch  the  Rose  of  Italy  flush 
in  the  first  morning  light,  before  a  human 
foot  had  sullied  its  summit,  or  the  reddening 
dawn  on  its  rocks  taken  shadow  of  sadness 
from  the  crimson  which  long  ago  stained  the 
ripples  of  Otterburn. 


^^ 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 

LECTURE  I  — SESAME 

OF   KINGS*   TREASURIES 

"You  shall  each  have  a  cake  of  sesame,  — and  ten 

pound." 

LuciAN :  The  Fisherman. 

MY  first  duty  this  evening  is  to  ask  your 
pardon  for  the  ambiguity  of  title 
under  which  the  subject  of  lecture  has  been 
announced:  for  indeed  I  am  not  going  to 
talk  of  kings,  known  as  regnant,  nor  of 
treasuries,  understood  to  contain  wealth; 
but  of  quite  another  order  of  royalty,  and 
another  material  of  riches,  than  those  usually 
acknowledged.  I  had  even  intended  to  ask 
your  attention  for  a  little  while  on  trust,  and 
(as  sometimes  one  contrives,  in  taking  a 
friend  to  see  a  favourite  piece  of  scenery) 
to  hide  what  I  wanted  most  to  show,  with 
such  imperfect  cunning  as  I  might,  until  we 
unexpectedly  reached  the  best  point  of  view 
by  winding  paths.  But  —  and  as  also  I  have 
heard  it  said,  by  men  practised  in  public 
address,  that  hearers  are  never  so  much 
fatigued  as  by  the  endeavour  to  follow  a 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

speaker  who  gives  them  no  clue  to  his  pur- 
pose,—  I  will  take  the  slight  mask  off  at 
once,  and  tell  you  plainly  that  I  want  to 
speak  to  you  about  the  treasures  hidden  in 
books;  and  about  the  way  we  find  them, 
and  the  way  we  lose  them.  A  grave  subject, 
you  will  say;  and  a  wide  one!  Yes;  so 
wide  that  I  shall  make  no  effort  to  touch 
the  compass  of  it.  I  will  try  only  to  bring 
before  you  a  few  simple  thoughts  about 
reading,  which  press  themselves  upon  me 
every  day  more  deeply,  as  I  watch  the 
course  of  the  public  mind  with  respect  to 
our  daily  enlarging  means  of  education; 
and  the  answeringly  wider  spreading  on  the 
levels,  of  the  irrigation  of  literature. 

2.  It  happens  that  I  have  practically 
some  connection  with  schools  for  different 
classes  of  youth  ;  and  I  receive  many  letters 
from  parents  respecting  the  education  of 
their  children.  In  the  mass  of  these  letters 
I  am  always  struck  by  the  precedence  which 
the  idea  of  a  "position  in  life"  takes  above 
all  other  thoughts  in  the  parents*  —  more 
especially  in  the  mothers*  —  minds.  "The 
education  befitting  such  and  such  a  station 
in  life  "  —  this  is  the  phrase,  this  the  object, 
always.  They  never  seek,  as  far  as  I  can 
make  out,  an  education  good  in  itself;  even 
the  conception  of  abstract  rightness  in  train- 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

ing  rarely  seems  reached  by  the  writers. 
But,  an  education  "  which  shall  keep  a  good 
coat  on  my  son's  back ;  —  which  shall  enable 
him  to  ring  with  confidence  the  visitors'  bell 
at  double-belled  doors  ;  which  shall  result 
ultimately  in  the  establishment  of  a  double- 
belled  door  to  his  own  house;  —  in  a  word, 
which  shall  lead  to  advancement  in  life;  — 
this  we  pray  for  on  bent  knees  —  and  this  is 
all  we  pray  for."  It  never  seems  to  occur  to 
the  parents  that  there  may  be  an  education 
which,  in  itself,  is  advancement  in  Life  ;  — 
that  any  other  than  that  may  perhaps  be 
advancement  in  Death;  and  that  this  essen- 
tial education  might  be  more  easily  got,  or 
given,  than  they  fancy,  if  they  set  about  it  in 
the  right  way;  while  it  is  for  no  price,  and 
by  no  favour,  to  be  got,  if  they  set  about  it 
in  the  wrong. 

3.  Indeed,  among  the  ideas  most  preva- 
lent and  effective  in  the  mind  of  this  busiest 
of  countries,  I  suppose  the  first — at  least 
that  which  is  confessed  with  the  greatest 
frankness,  and  put  forward  as  the  fittest 
stimulus  to  youthful  exertion  —  is  this  of 
"  Advancement  in  life."  May  I  ask  you  to 
consider  with  me,  what  this  idea  practically 
includes,  and  what  it  should  include  ? 

Practically,  then,  at  present,  "advance- 
ment in  life  "  means,  becoming  conspicuous 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

in  life ;  obtaining  a  position  which  shall  be 
acknowledged  by  others  to  be  respectable  or 
honourable.  We  do  not  understand  by  this 
advancement,  in  general,  the  mere  making 
of  money,  but  the  being  known  to  have 
made  it;  not  the  accomplishment  of  any 
great  aim,  but  the  being  seen  to  have 
accomplished  it.  In  a  word,  we  mean  the 
gratification  of  our  thirst  for  applause.  That 
thirst,  if  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  is 
also  the  first  infirmity  of  weak  ones ;  and,  on 
the  whole,  the  strongest  impulsive  influence 
of  average  humanity :  the  greatest  efforts  of 
the  race  have  always  been  traceable  to  the 
love  of  praise,  as  its  greatest  catastrophes  to 
the  love  of  pleasure. 

4.  I  am  not  about  to  attack  or  defend 
this  impulse.  I  want  you  only  to  feel  how 
it  lies  at  the  root  of  effort ;  especially  of  all 
modern  effort.  It  is  the  gratification  of 
vanity  which  is,  with  us,  the  stimulus  of  toil 
and  balm  of  repose ;  so  closely  does  it  touch 
the  very  springs  of  life  that  the  wounding  of 
our  vanity  is  always  spoken  of  (and  truly)  as 
in  its  measure  mortal ;  we  call  it  "  mortifica- 
tion," using  the  same  expression  which  we 
should  apply  to  a  gangrenous  and  incurable 
bodily  hurt.  And  although  a  few  of  us  may 
be  physicians  enough  to  recognise  the  various 
effect  of  this  passion  upon  health  and  energy, 


OF  king's  treasuries 

I  believe  most  honest  men  know,  and  would 
at  once  acknowledge,  its  leading  power  with 
them  as  a  motive.  The  seaman  does  not 
commonly  desire  to  be  made  captain  only 
because  he  knows  he  can  manage  the  ship 
better  than  any  other  sailor  on  board.  He 
wants  to  be  made  captain  that  he  may  be 
called  captain.  The  clergyman  does  not 
usually  want  to  be  made  a  bishop  only 
because  he  believes  that  no  other  hand  can, 
as  firmly  as  his,  direct  the  diocese  through 
its  difficulties.  He  wants  to  be  made  bisliop 
primarily  that  he  may  be  called  "  My  Lord.'* 
And  a  prince  does  not  usually  desire  to 
enlarge,  or  a  subject  to  gain,  a  kingdom, 
because  he  believes  that  no  one  else  can  as 
well  serve  the  State,  upon  its  throne;  but, 
briefly,  because  he  wishes  to  be  addressed  as 
"  Your  Majesty,"  by  as  many  lips  as  may  be 
brought  to  such  utterance. 

5.  This,  then,  being  the  main  idea  of 
"  advancement  in  life,"  the  force  of  it 
applies,  for  all  of  us,  according  to  our  sta- 
tion, particularly  to  that  secondary  result  of 
such  advancement  which  we  call  "  getting 
into  good  society."  We  want  to  get  into 
good  society  not  that  we  may  have  it,  but 
that  we  may  be  seen  in  it ;  and  our  notion 
of  its  goodness  depends  primarily  on  its 
conspicuousness. 


SESAME    AND   LILIES 

Will  you  pardon  me  if  I  pause  for  a 
moment  to  put  what  I  fear  you  may  think 
an  impertinent  question  ?  I  never  can  go  on 
with  an  address  unless  I  feel,  or  know,  that 
my  audience  are  either  with  me  or  against 
me  :  I  do  not  much  care  which,  in  beginning ; 
but  I  must  know  where  they  are;  and  I 
would  fain  find  out,  at  this  instant,  whether 
you  think  I  am  putting  the  motives  of  popu- 
lar action  too  low.  I  am  resolved,  to-night, 
to  state  them  low  enough  to  be  admitted  as 
probable;  for  whenever,  in  my  writings  on 
Political  Economy,  I  assume  that  a  little 
honesty,  or  generosity,  —  or  what  used  to  be 
called  "  virtue  "  —  may  be  calculated  upon 
as  a  human  motive  of  action,  people  always 
answer  me,  saying,  "  You  must  not  calculate 
on  that :  that  is  not  in  human  nature :  you 
must  not  assume  anything  to  be  common  to 
men  but  acquisitiveness  and  jealousy;  no 
other  feeling  ever  has  influence  on  them, 
except  accidentally,  and  in  matters  out  of 
the  way  of  business."  I  begin,  accordingly, 
to-night  low  in  the  scale  of  motives;  but  I 
must  know  if  you  think  me  right  in  doing  so. 
Therefore,  let  me  ask  those  who  admit  the 
love  of  praise  to  be  usually  the  strongest 
motive  in  men's  minds  in  seeking  advance- 
ment, and  the  honest  desire  of  doing  any 
kind   of   duty  to  be  an  entirely   secondary 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

one,  to  hold  up  their  hands.  (About  a  dozen 
hands  held  up  —  the  audience^  partly^  not  being 
sure  the  lecturer  is  serious,  and,  partly,  shy  of 
expressing  opinion,)  I  am  quite  serious  —  I 
really  do  want  to  know  what  you  think  ; 
however,  I  can  judge  by  putting  the  reverse 
question.  Will  those  who  think  that  duty 
is  generally  the  first,  and  love  of  praise  the 
second,  motive,  hold  up  their  hands  ?  (One 
hand  reported  to  have  been  held  up,  behind 
the  lecturer.)  Very  good:  I  see  you  are 
with  me,  and  that  you  think  I  have  not 
begun  too  near  the  ground.  Now,  without 
teasing  you  by  putting  farther  question,  I 
venture  to  assume  that  you  will  admit  duty 
as  at  least  a  secondary  or  tertiary  motive. 
You  think  that  the  desire  of  doing  something 
useful,  or  obtaining  some  real  good,  is  indeed 
an  existent  collateral  idea,  though  a  second- 
ary one,  in  most  men's  desire  of  advancement. 
You  will  grant  that  moderately  honest  men 
desire  place  and  office,  at  least  in  some 
measure,  for  the  sake  of  beneficent  power ; 
and  would  wish  to  associate  rather  with  sen- 
sible and  well-informed  persons  than  with 
fools  and  ignorant  persons,  whether  they 
are  seen  in  the  company  of  the  sensible  ones 
or  not.  And  finally,  without  being  troubled 
by  repetition  of  any  common  truisms  about 
the  preciousness  of  friends,  and  the  influence 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

of  companions,  you  will  admit,  doubtless,  that 
according  to  the  sincerity  of  our  desire  that 
our  friends  may  be  true,  and  our  companions 
wise,  —  and  in  proportion  to  the  earnestness 
and  discretion  with  which  we  choose  both, 
will  be  the  general  chances  of  our  happiness 
and  usefulness. 

6.  But  granting  that  we  had  both  the 
will  and  the  sense  to  choose  our  friends 
well,  how  few  of  us  have  the  power !  or,  at 
least,  how  limited,  for  most,  is  the  sphere 
of  choice  1  Nearly  all  our  associations  are 
determined  by  chance,  or  necessity;  and 
restricted  within  a  narrow  circle.  We  cannot 
know  whom  we  would ;  and  those  whom  we 
know,  we  cannot  have  at  our  side  when  we 
most  need  them.  All  the  higher  circles  of 
human  intelligence  are,  to  those  beneath, 
only  momentarily  and  partially  open.  We 
may,  by  good  fortune,  obtain  a  glimpse  of  a 
great  poet,  and  hear  the  sound  of  his  voice  ; 
or  put  a  question  to  a  man  of  science,  and 
be  answered  good-humouredly.  We  may 
intrude  ten  minutes'  talk  on  a  cabinet  min- 
ister, answered  probably  with  words  worse 
than  silence,  being  deceptive;  or  snatch, 
once  or  twice  in  our  lives,  the  privilege  of 
throwing  a  bouquet  in  the  path  of  a  Princess, 
or  arresting  the  kind  glance  of  a  Queen. 
And  yet  these  momentary  chances  we  covet ; 


S 


OF    KINGS'    TREASURIES 

and  spend  our  years,  and  passions  and 
powers  in  pursuit  of  little  more  than  these  j 
while,  meantime,  there  is  a  society  contin- 
ually open  to  us,  of  people  who  will  talk  to 
us  as  long  as  we  like,  whatever  our  rank  or 
occupation ;  —  talk  to  us  in  the  best  words 
they  can  choose,  and  of  the  things  nearest 
their  hearts.  And  this  society,  because  it  is 
so  numerous  and  so  gentle,  and  can  be  kept 
waiting  round  us  all  day  long,  —  kings  and 
statesmen  lingering  patiently,  not  to  grant 
audience,  but  to  gain  itl — in  those  plainly 
furnished  and  narrow  ante-rooms,  our  book- 
case shelves,  —  we  make  no  account  of  that 
company,  —  perhaps  never  listen  to  a  word 
they  would  say,  all  day  long ! 

7.  You  may  tell  me,  perhaps,  or  think 
within  yourselves,  that  the  apathy  with  which 
we  regard  this  company  of  the  noble,  who 
are  praying  us  to  listen  to  them;  and  the 
passion  with  which  we  pursue  the  company, 
probably  of  the  ignoble,  who  despise  us,  or 
who  have  nothing  to  teach  us,  are  grounded 
in  this,  —  that  we  can  see  the  faces  of  the 
living  men,  and  it  is  themselves,  and  not 
their  sayings,  with  which  we  desire  to  become 
familiar.  But  it  is  not  so.  Suppose  you 
never  were  to  see  their  faces  :  —  suppose  you 
could  be  put  behind  a  screen  in  the  states- 
man's cabinet,  or  the  prince's  chamber,  would 


9 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

you  not  be  glad  to  listen  to  their  words, 
though  you  were  forbidden  to  advance 
beyond  the  screen  ?  And  when  the  screen 
is  only  a  little  less,  folded  in  two  instead  of 
four,  and  you  can  be  hidden  behind  the 
cover  of  the  two  boards  that  bind  a  book, 
and  listen  all  day  long,  not  to  the  casual 
talk,  but  to  the  studied,  determined,  chosen 
addresses  of  the  wisest  of  men ;  —  this 
station  of  audience,  and  honourable  privy 
council,  you  despise  1 

8.  But  perhaps  you  will  say  that  it  is 
because  the  living  people  talk  of  things  that 
are  passing,  and  are  of  immediate  interest  to 
you,  that  you  desire  to  hear  them.  Nay; 
that  cannot  be  so,  for  the  living  people  will 
themselves  tell  you  about  passing  matters, 
much  better  in  their  writings  than  in  their 
careless  talk.  But  I  admit  that  this  motive 
does  influence  you,  so  far  as  you  prefer 
those  rapid*  and  ephemeral  writings  to  slow 
and  enduring  writings — books,  properly  so 
called.  For  all  books  are  divisible  into  two 
classes:  the  books  of  the  hour,  and  the 
books  of  all  time.  Mark  this  distinction  — 
it  is  not  one  of  quality  only.  It  is  not 
merely  the  bad  book  that  does  not  last,  and 
the  good  one  that  does.  It  is  a  distinction 
of  species.  There  are  good  books  for  the 
hour,  and  good  ones  for  all  time ;  bad  books 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

for  the  hour,  and  bad  ones  for  all  time.  I 
must  define  the  two  kinds  before  I  go 
farther. 

9.  The  good  book  of  the  hour,  then,  —  I 
do  not  speak  of  the  bad  ones  —  is  simply 
the  useful  or  pleasant  talk  of  some  person 
whom  you  cannot  otherwise  converse  with, 
printed  for  you.  Very  useful  often,  telling 
you  what  you  need  to  know ;  very  pleasant 
often,  as  a  sensible  friend's  present  talk 
would  be.  These  bright  accounts  of  travels  ; 
good-humoured  and  witty  discussions  of 
question  ;  lively  or  pathetic  story-telling  in 
the  form  of  novel;  firm  fact -telling,  by  the 
real  agents  concerned  in  the  events  of  pass- 
ing history;  —  all  these  books  of  the  hour, 
multiplying  among  us  as  education  becomes 
more  general,  are  a  peculiar  possession  of 
the  present  age :  we  ought  to  be  entirely 
thankful  for  them,  and  entirely  ashamed  of 
ourselves  if  we  make  no  good  use  of  them. 
But  we  make  the  worst  possible  use  if  we 
allow  them  to  usurp  the  place  of  true  books  : 
for,  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not  books  at 
all,  but  merely  letters  or  newspapers  in  good 
print.  Our  friend's  letter  may  be  delightful, 
or  necessary,  to-day :  whether  worth  keeping 
or  not,  is  to  be  considered.  The  newspaper 
may  be  entirely  proper  at  breakfast-time,  but 
assuredly  it  is  not  reading  for  all  day.     So, 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

though  bound  up  in  a  volume,  the  long  letter 
which  gives  you  so  pleasant  an  account  of 
the  inns,  and  roads,  and  weather  last  year  at 
such  a  place,  or  which  tells  you  that  amusing 
story,  or  gives  you  the  real  circumstances  of 
such  and  such  events,  however  valuable  for 
occasional  reference,  may  not  be,  in  the  real 
sense  of  the  w^ord,  a  "  book  "  at  all,  nor  in 
the  real  sense,  to  be  "  read."  A  book  is 
essentially  not  a  talked  thing,  but  a  written 
thing ;  and  written,  not  with  a  view  of  mere 
communication,  but  of  permanence.  The 
book  of  talk  is  printed  only  because  its  author 
cannot  speak  to  thousands  of  people  at  once ; 
if  he  could,  he  would  —  the  volume  is  mere 
multiplication  of  his  voice.  You  cannot  talk 
to  your  friend  in  India;  if  you  could,  you 
would  ;  you  write  instead :  that  is  mere  con- 
veyance of  voice.  But  a  book  is  written,  not 
to  multiply  the  voice  merely,  not  to  carry  it 
merely,  but  to  perpetuate  it.  The  author 
has  something  to  say  which  he  perceives  to 
be  true  and  useful,  or  helpfully  beautiful.  So 
far  as  he  knows,  no  one  has  yet  said  it ;  so  far 
as  he  knows,  no  one  else  can  say  it.  He  is 
bound  to  say  it,  clearly  and  melodiously  if 
he  may ;  clearly,  at  all  events.  In  the  sum 
of  his  life  he -finds  this  to  be  the  thing,  or 
group  of  things,  manifest  to  him  ;  —  this,  the 
piece  of  true  knowledge,  or  sight,  which  his 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

share  of  sunshine  and  earth  has  permitted 
him  to  seize.  He  would  fain  set  it  down 
for  ever ;  engrave  it  on  rock,  if  he  could ; 
saying,  "  This  is  the  best  of  me  ;  for  the  rest, 
I  ate,  and  drank,  and  slept,  loved,  and  hated, 
like  another;  my  life  was  as  the  vapour, 
and  is  not ;  but  this  I  saw  and  knew :  this, 
if  anything  of  mine,  is  worth  your  memory." 
That  is  his  ''writing";  it  is,  in  his  small 
human  way,  and  with  whatever  degree  of 
true  inspiration  is  in  him,  his  inscription,  or 
scripture.     That  is  a  "  Book." 

10.  Perhaps  you  think  no  books  were 
ever  so  written  ? 

But,  again,  I  ask  you,  do  you  at  all  believe 
in  honesty,  or  at  all  in  kindness  ?  or  do  you 
think  there  is  never  any  honesty  or  benevo- 
lence in  wise  people  ?  None  of  us,  I  hope, 
are  so  unhappy  as  to  think  that.  Well, 
whatever  bit  of  a  wise  man's  work  is  honestly 
and  benevolently  done,  that  bit  is  his  book, 
or  his  piece  of  art.  i  It  is  mixed  always 
with  evil  fragments  —  ill-done,  redundant, 
affected  work.  But  if  you  read  rightly,  you 
will  easily  discover  the  true  bits,  and  those 
are  the  book. 

11.  Now,  books  of  this  kind  have  been 
written  in  all  ages  by  their  greatest  men,  — 

I  Note  this  sentence  carefully,  and  compare  the 
'  Queen  of  the  Air/  §  io6. 


13 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

by  great  readers,  great  statesmen,  and  great 
thinkers.  These  are  all  at  your  choice ; 
and  Life  is  short.  You  have  heard  as 
much  before; — yet,  have  you  measured  and 
mapped  out  this  short  life  and  its  possibil- 
ities ?  Do  you  know,  if  you  read  this,  that 
you  cannot  read  that  —  that  what  you  lose 
to-day  you  cannot  gain  to-morrow  ?  Will 
you  go  and  gossip  with  your  housemaid,  or 
your  stableboy,  when  you  may  talk  with 
queens  and  kings ;  or  flatter  yourselves  that 
it  is  with  any  worthy  consciousness  of  your 
own  claims  to  respect,  that  you  jostle  with 
the  hungry  and  common  crowd  for  entree 
here,  and  audience  there,  when  all  the  while 
this  eternal  court  is  open  to  you,  with  its 
society,  wide  as  the  world,  multitudinous  as 
its  days,  the  chosen,  and  the  mighty,  of  every 
place  and  time  ?  Into  that  you  may  enter 
always  ;  in  that  you  may  take  fellowship  and 
rank  according  to  your  wish ;  from  that,  once 
entered  into  it,  you  can  never  be  an  outcast 
but  by  your  own  fault ;  by  your  aristocracy 
of  companionship  there,  your  own  inherent 
aristocracy  will  be  assuredly  tested,  and  the 
motives  with  which  you  strive  to  take  high 
place  in  the  society  of  the  living,  measured, 
as  to  all  the  truth  and  sincerity  that  are  in 
them,  by  the  place  you  desire  to  take  in  this 
company  of  the  Dead. 


14 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

12.  "The  place  you  desire,"  and  the 
place  you  fit  yourself  for  ^  I  must  also  say ; 
because,  observe,  this  court  of  the  past 
differs  from  all  living  aristocracy  in  this  :  — 
it  is  open  to  labour  and  to  merit,  but  to 
nothing  else.  No  wealth  will  bribe,  no  name 
overawe,  no  artifice  deceive,  the  guardian  of 
those  Elysian  gates.  In  the  deep  sense,  no 
vile  or  vulgar  person  ever  enters  there.  At 
the  portieres  of  that  silent  Faubourg  St. 
Germain,  there  is  but  brief  question ;  "  Do 
you  deserve  to  enter  ?  Pass.  Do  you  ask  to 
be  the  companion  of  nobles  ?  Make  your- 
self noble,  and  you  shall  be.  Do  you  long 
for  the  conversation  of  the  wise  ?  Learn  to 
understand  it,  and  you  shall  hear  it.  But  on 
other  terms  .-^  —  no.  If  you  will  not  rise  to 
us,  we  cannot  stoop  to  you.  The  living  lord 
may  assume  courtesy,  the  living  philosopher 
explain  his  thought  to  you  with  considerate 
pain ;  but  here  we  neither  feign  nor  inter- 
pret; you  must  rise  to  the  level  of  our 
thoughts  if  you  would  be  gladdened  by 
them,  and  share  our  feelings  if  you  would 
recognise  our  presence." 

13.  This,  then,  is  what  you  have  to  do, 
and  I  admit  that  it  is  much.  You  must,  in 
a  word,  love  these  people,  if  you  are  to  be 
among  them.  No  ambition  is  of  any  use. 
They  scorn  your  ambition.     You  must  love 


IS 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

them,  and  show  your  love  in  these  two 
following  ways. 

I .  —  First,  by  a  true  desire  to  be  taught  by 
them,  and  to  enter  into  their  thoughts.  To 
enter  into  theirs,  observe  ;  not  to  find  your 
own  expressed  by  them.  If  the  person  who 
wrote  the  book  is  not  wiser  than  you,  you 
need  not  read  it ;  if  he  be,  he  will  think 
differently  from  you  in  many  respects. 

Very  ready  we  are  to  say  of  a  book,  "  How 
good  this  is  —  that's  exactly  what  I  think  1  " 
But  the  right  feeling  is,  '*  How  strange  that 
is  1  I  never  thought  of  that  before,  and  yet 
I  see  it  is  true ;  or  if  I  do  not  now,  I  hope  I 
shall,  some  day."  But  whether  thus  submis- 
sively or  not,  at  least  be  sure  that  you  go  to 
the  author  to  get  at  his  meaning,  not  to  find 
yours.  Judge  it  afterwards  if  you  think 
yourself  qualified  to  do  so ;  but  ascertain  it 
first.  And  be  sure  also,  if  the  author  is 
worth  anything,  that  you  will  not  get  at  his 
meaning  all  at  once ;  —  nay,  that  at  his  whole 
meaning  you  will  not  for  a  long  time  arrive 
in  any  wise.  Not  that  he  does  not  say  what 
he  means,  and  in  strong  words  too ;  but  he 
cannot  say  it  all ;  and  what  is  more  strange, 
will  not,  but  in  a  hidden  way  and  in  parable, 
in  order  that  he  may  be  sure  you  want  it. 
I  cannot  quite  see  the  reason  of  this,  nor 
analyse  that  cruel  reticence  in  the  breasts  of 


i6 


OF   KINGS*   TREASURIES 

wise  men  which  makes  them  always  hide 
their  deeper  thought.  They  do  not  give  it 
you  by  way  of  help,  but  of  reward ;  and  will 
make  themselves  sure  that  you  deserve  it 
before  they  allow  you  to  reach  it.  But  it  is 
the  same  with  the  physical  type  of  wisdom, 
gold.  There  seems,  to  you  and  me,  no 
reason  why  the  electric  forces  of  the  earth 
should  not  carry  whatever  there  is  of  gold 
within  it  at  once  to  the  mountain  tops,  so 
that  kings  and  people  might  know  that  all 
the  gold  they  could  get  was  there;  and 
without  any  trouble  of  digging,  or  anxiety, 
or  chance,  or  waste  of  time,  cut  it  away,  and 
coin  as  much  as  they  needed.  But  Nature 
does  not  manage  it  so.  She  puts  it  in  little 
fissures  in  the  earth,  nobody  knows  where ; 
you  may  dig  long  and  find  none ;  you  must 
dig  painfully  to  find  any. 

14.  And  it  is  just  the  same  with  men's 
best  wisdom.  When  you  come  to  a  good 
book,  you  must  ask  yourself,  "  Am  I  inclined 
to  work  as  an  Australian  miner  would  ?  Are 
my  pickaxes  and  shovels  in  good  order,  and 
am  I  in  good  trim  myself,  my  sleeves  well  up 
to  the  elbow,  and  my  breath  good,  and  my 
temper  ? "  And,  keeping  the  figure  a  little 
longer,  even  at  cost  of  tiresomeness,  for  it  is 
a  thoroughly  useful  one,  the  metal  you  are 
in   search   of  being   the   author's   mind   or 


17 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

meaning,  his  words  are  as  the  rock  which 
you  have  to  crush  and  smelt  in  order  to  get 
at  it.  And  your  pickaxes  are  your  own  care, 
wit,  and  learning;  your  smelting  furnace  is 
your  own  thoughtful  soul.  Do  not  hope  to 
get  at  any  good  author's  meaning  without 
those  tools  and  that  fire;  often  you  will 
need  sharpest,  finest  chiselling,  and  patientest 
fusing,  before  you  can  gather  one  grain  of 
the  metal. 

15.  And,  therefore,  first  of  all,  I  tell  you 
earnestly  and  authoritatively,  ( I  know  I  am 
right  in  this,)  you  must  get  into  the  habit 
of  looking  intensely  at  words,  and  assuring 
yourself  of  their  meaning,  syllable  by  syllable 
—  nay,  letter  by  letter.  For  though  it  is  only 
by  reason  of  the  opposition  of  letters  in  the 
function  of  signs,  to  sounds  in  the  function 
of  signs,  that  the  study  of  books  is  called 
"  literature,"  and  that  a  man  versed  in  it  is 
called,  by  the  consent  of  nations,  a  man  of 
letters  instead  of  a  man  of  books,  or  of 
words,  you  may  yet  connect  with  that  acci- 
dental nomenclature  this  real  fact,  —  that 
you  might  read  all  the  books  in  the  British 
Museum  (if  you  could  live  long  enough),  and 
remain  an  utterly  "  illiterate,"  uneducated 
person ;  but  that  if  you  read  ten  pages  of  a 
good  book,  letter  by  letter,  —  that  is  to  say, 
with  real  accuracy,  —  you  are  for  evermore  in 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

some  measure  an  educated  person.  The 
entire  difference  between  education  and 
non-education  (as  regards  the  merely  intel- 
lectual part  of  it),  consists  in  this  accuracy. 
A  well-educated  gentleman  may  not  know 
many  languages,  —  may  not  be  able  to  speak 
any  but  his  own,  —  may  have  read  very  few 
books.  But  whatever  language  he  knows, 
he  knows  precisely;  whatever  word  he  pro- 
nounces, he  pronounces  rightly;  above  all, 
he  is  learned  in  the  peerage  of  words  ;  knows 
the  words  of  true  descent  and  ancient  blood, 
at  a  glance,  from  words  of  modern  canaille ; 
remembers  all  their  ancestry,  their  intermar- 
riages, distant  relationships,  and  the  extent 
to  which  they  were  admitted,  and  offices 
they  held,  among  the  national  noblesse  of 
words  at  any  time,  and  in  any  country. 
But  an  uneducated  person  may  know,  by 
memory,  many  languages,  and  talk  them  all, 
and  yet  truly  know  not  a  word  of  any,  —  not  a 
word  even  of  his  own.  An  ordinarily  clever 
and  sensible  seaman  will  be  able  to  make  his 
way  ashore  at  most  ports ;  yet  he  has  only 
to  speak  a  sentence  of  any  language  to  be 
known  for  an  illiterate  person ;  so  also  the 
accent,  or  turn  of  expression  of  a  single 
sentence,  will  at  once  mark  a  scholar.  And 
this  is  so  strongly  felt,  so  conclusively 
admitted,  by  educated  persons,  that  a  false 


19 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

accent  or  a  mistaken  syllable  is  enough,  in 
the  parliament  of  any"  civilised  nation,  to 
assign  to  a  man  a  certain  degree  of  inferior 
Standing  for  ever. 

1 6.  And  this  is  right ;  but  it  is  a  pity  that 
the  accuracy  insisted  on  is  not  greater,  and 
required  to  a  serious  purpose.  It  is  right 
that  a  false  Latin  quantity  should  excite  a 
smile  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  it  is 
wrong  that  a  false  English  meaning  should 
not  excite  a  frown  there.  Let  the  accent  of 
words  be  watched ;  and  closely :  let  their 
meaning  be  watched  more  closely  still,  and 
fewer  will  do  the  work.  A  few  words,  well 
chosen  and  distinguished,  will  do  work  that 
a  thousand  cannot,  when  every  one  is  act- 
ing, equivocally,  in  the  function  of  another. 
Yes ;  and  words,  if  they  are  not  watched, 
will  do  deadly  work  sometimes.  There  are 
masked  words  droning  and  skulking  about 
us  in  Europe  just  now, —  (there  never  were 
so  many,  owing  to  the  spread  of  a  shallow, 
blotching,  blundering,  infectious  "informa- 
tion," or  rather  deformation,  everywhere, 
and  to  the  teaching  of  catechisms  and 
phrases  at  schools  instead  of  human  mean- 
ings) —  there  are  masked  words  abroad,  I 
say,  which  nobody  understands,  but  which 
everybody  uses,  and  most  people  will  also 
fight  for,  live  for,  or  even  die  for,  fancying 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

they  mean  this  or  that,  or  the  other,  of 
things  dear  to  them :  for  such  words  wear 
chamaeleon  cloaks  —  "  groundlion  "  cloaks, 
of  the  colour  of  the  ground  of  any  man's 
fancy :  on  that  ground  they  lie  in  wait,  and 
rend  him  with  a  spring  from  it.  There  never 
were  creatures  of  prey  so  mischievous,  never 
diplomatists  so  cunning,  never  poisoners  so 
deadly,  as  these  masked  words  ;  they  are  the 
unjust  stewards  of  all  men's  ideas  :  whatever 
fancy  or  favourite  instinct  a  man  most 
cherishes,  he  gives  to  his  favourite  masked 
word  to  take  care  of  for  him ;  the  word  at 
last  comes  to  have  an  infinite  power  over 
him,  —  you  cannot  get  at  him  but  by  its 
ministry. 

17.  And  in  languages  so  mongrel  in 
breed  as  the  English,  there  is  a  fatal  power 
of  equivocation  put  into  men's  hands,  almost 
whether  they  will  or  no,  in  being  able  to 
use  Greek  or  Latin  words  for  an  idea  when 
they  want  it  to  be  awful ;  and  Saxon  or 
otherwise  common  words  when  they  want  it 
to  be  vulgar.  What  a  singular  and  salutary 
effect,  for  instance,  would  be  produced  on 
the  minds  of  people  who  are  in  the  habit  of 
taking  the  Form  of  the  "  Word "  they  live 
by,  for  the  Power  of  which  that  Word  tells 
them,  if  we  always  either  retained,  or  refused, 
the  Greek  form  "biblos,"  or  "biblion,"  as 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

the  right  expression  for  "book"  —  instead 
of  employing  it  only  in  the  one  instance  in 
which  we  wish  to  give  dignity  to  the  idea, 
and  translating  it  into  English  everywhere 
else.  How  wholesome  it  would  be  for 
many  simple  persons  if,  in  such  places  (for 
instance)  as  Acts  xix.  19,  we  retained  the 
Greek  expression,  instead  of  translating  it, 
and  they  had  to  read —  "  Many  of  them  also 
which  used  curious  arts,  brought  their  Bibles 
together,  and  burnt  them  before  all  men ; 
and  they  counted  the  price  of  them,  and 
found  it  fifty  thousand  pieces  of  silver"  1 
Or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  translated 
where  we  retain  it,  and  always  spoke  of 
"  the  Holy  Book,"  instead  of  "  Holy  Bible," 
it  might  come  into  more  heads  than  it  does 
at  present,  that  the  Word  of  God,  by  which 
the  heavens  were  of  old,  and  by  which  they 
are  now  kept  in  store,i  cannot  be  made  a 
present  of  to  anybody  in  morocco  binding; 
nor  sown  on  any  wayside  by  help  either 
of  steam  plough  or  steam  press;  but  is 
nevertheless  being  offered  to  us  daily,  and 
by  us  with  contumely  refused :  and  sown  in 
us  daily,  and  by  us,  as  instantly  as  may  be, 
choked. 

18.     So,  again,  consider  what  effect  has 
been  produced  on  the  English  vulgar  mind 


I     2  Peter  iii.  5-7. 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

by  the  use  of  the  sonorous  Latin  form 
'*  damno,"  in  translating  the  Greek  KaTaKpivoj, 
when  people  charitably  wish  to  make  it 
forcible  ;  and  the  substitution  of  the  temper- 
ate "  condemn  "  for  it,  when  they  choose  to 
keep  it  gentle;  and  what  notable  sermons 
have  been  preached  by  illiterate  clergymen  on 

—  "  He  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned;  " 
though  they  would  shrink  with  horror  from 
translating  Heb.  xi.  7,  "The  saving  of  his 
house,  by  which  he  damned  the  world,"  or 
John  viii.  lo-ii,  "Woman,  hath  no  man 
damned  thee?  She  saith.  No  man,  Lord. 
Jesus  answered  her.  Neither  do  I  damn 
thee  :  go,  and  sin  no  more."  And  divisions 
in  the  mind  of  Europe,  w^hich  have  cost  seas 
of  blood,  and  in  the  defence  of  which  the 
noblest  souls  of  men  have  been  cast  away  in 
frantic  desolation,  countless  as  forest-leaves 

—  though,  in  the  heart  of  them,  founded  on 
deeper  causes  —  have  nevertheless  been  ren- 
dered practically  possible,  mainly,  by  the 
European  adoption  of  the  Greek  word  for  a 
public  meeting,  "  ecclesia,"  to  give  peculiar 
respectability  to  such  meetings,  when  held 
for  religious  purposes ;  and  other  collateral 
equivocations,  such  as  the  vulgar  English  one 
of  using  the  word  "priest"  as  a  contraction 
for  "  presbyter." 

19.    Now,  in  order  to   deal   with   words 


23 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

rightly,  this  is  the  habit  you  must  form. 
Nearly  every  word  in  your  language  has 
been  first  a  word  of  some  other  language  — 
of  Saxon,  German,  French,  Latin,  or  Greek ; 
(not  to  speak  of  eastern  and  primitive 
dialects).  And  many  words  have  been  all 
these;  —  that  is  to  say,  have  been  Greek 
first,  Latin  next,  French  or  German  next, 
and  English  last:  undergoing  a  certain 
change  of  sense  and  use  on  the  lips  of  each 
nation ;  but  retaining  a  deep  vital  meaning, 
which  all  good  scholars  feel  in  employing 
them,  even  at  this  day.  If  you  do  not  know 
the  Greek  alphabet,  learn  it ;  young  or  old  — 
girl  or  boy  —  whoever  you  may  be,  if  you 
think  of  reading  seriously  (which,  of  course, 
implies  that  you  have  some  leisure  at  com- 
mand), learn  your  Greek  alphabet ;  then  get 
good  dictionaries  of  all  these  languages,  and 
whenever  you  are  in  doubt  about  a  word, 
hunt  it  down  patiently.  Read  Max  Miiller's 
lectures  thoroughly,  to  begin  with;  and, 
after  that,  never  let  a  word  escape  you  that 
looks  suspicious.  It  is  severe  work ;  but 
you  will  find  it,  even  at  first,  interesting,  and 
at  last,  endlessly  amusing.  And  the  general 
gain  to  your  character,  in  power  and  preci- 
sion, will  be  quite  incalculable. 

Mind,   this   does   not  imply   knowing,  or 
trying  to  know,  Greek,  or  Latin,  or  French. 


24 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

It  takes  a  whole  life  to  learn  any  language 
perfectly.  But  you  can  easily  ascertain  the 
meanings  through  which  the  English  word 
has  passed;  and  those  which  in  a  good 
writer's  work  it  must  still  bear. 

20.  And  now,  merely  for  example's  sake, 
I  will,  with  your  permission,  read  a  few  lines 
of  a  true  book  with  you,  carefully ;  and  see 
what  will  come  out  of  them.  I  will  take 
a  book  perfectly  known  to  you  all.  No 
English  words  are  more  familiar  to  us,  yet 
few  perhaps  have  been  read  with  less  sincer- 
ity. I  will  take  these  few  following  lines  of 
Lycidas  :  — 

"  Last  came,  and  last  did  go, 

The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake. 

Two  massy  keys  he  bore  of  metals  twain, 

( The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain,) 

He  shook  his  mitred  locks,  and  stem  bespake. 

'  How  well  could  I  have  spared  for  thee,  young  swain. 

Enow  of  surh  as  for  their  bellies'  sake 

Creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold ! 

Of  ofher  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 

Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast. 

And  shove  away  the  worthy  bidden  guest ; 

Blind  mouths !  that  scarce  themselves  know  how  to  hold 

A  sheep-hook,  or  have  learned  aught  else,  the  least 

That  to  the  faithful  herdman's  art  belongs ! 

What  recks  it  them?  What  need  they  ?  They  are  sped  ; 

And  when  they  list,  their  lean  and  flashy  songs 

Grate  on  their  scrannel  pipes  of  wretched  straw. 

The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed. 

But  swoln  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw. 


25 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

Rot  inwardly,  and  foul  contagion  spread  ; 
Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 
Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said.'  " 

Let  US  think  over  this  passage,  and  examine 
its  words. 

First,  is  it  not  singular  to  find  Milton 
assigning  to  St.  Peter,  not  only  his  full 
episcopal  function,  but  the  very  types  of 
it  which  Protestants  usually  refuse  most 
passionately  ?  His  "  mitred"  locks  !  Milton 
was  no  Bishop-lover;  how  comes  St.  Peter  to 
be  *'  mitred"  ?  "  Two  massy  keys  he  bore." 
Is  this,  then,  the  power  of  the  keys  claimed 
by  the  Bishops  of  Rome,  and  is  it  acknowl- 
edged here  by  Milton  only  in  a  poetical 
licence,  for  the  sake  of  its  picturesqueness, 
that  he  may  get  the  gleam  of  the  golden 
keys  to  help  his  effect  ? 

Do  not  think  it.  Great  men  do  not  play 
stage  tricks  with  the  doctrines  of  life  and 
death :  only  little  men  do  that.  Milton 
means  what  he  says;  and  means  it  with 
his  might  too  —  is  going  to  put  the  whole 
strength  of  his  spirit  presently  into  the 
saying  of  it.  For  though  not  a  lover  of 
false  bishops,  he  was  a  lover  of  true  ones ; 
and  the  Lake -pilot  is  here,  in  his  thoughts, 
the  type  and  head  of  true  episcopal  power. 
For  Milton  reads  that  text,  "  I  will  give  unto 
thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  " 


26 


OF    KINGS'   TREASURIES 

quite  honestly.  Puritan  though  he  be,  he 
would  not  blot  it  out  of  the  book  because 
there  have  been  bad  bishops  ;  nay,  in  order 
to  understand  hiin^  we  must  understand  that 
verse  first ;  it  will  not  do  to  eye  it  askance, 
or  whisper  it  under  our  breath,  as  if  it  were 
a  weapon  of  an  adverse  sect.  It  is  a  solemn, 
universal  assertion,  deeply  to  be  kept  in 
mind  by  all  sects.  But  perhaps  we  shall  be 
better  able  to  reason  on  it  if  we  go  on  a  little 
farther,  and  come  back  to  it.  For  clearly 
this  marked  insistence  on  the  power  of  the 
true  episcopate  is  to  make  us  feel  more 
weightily  what  is  to  be  charged  against  the 
false  claimants  of  episcopate ;  or  generally, 
against  false  claimants  of  power  and  rank  in 
the  body  of  the  clergy:  they  who,  "for their 
bellies'  sake,  creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb 
into  the  fold.'* 

21.  Never  think  Milton  uses  those  three 
words  to  fill  up  his  verse,  as  a  loose  writer 
would.  He  needs  all  the  three ;  —  specially 
those  three,  and  no  more  than  those  — 
"  creep,"  and  *'  intrude,"  and  '*  climb  ;  "  no 
other  words  would  or  could  serve  the  turn, 
and  no  more  could  be  added.  For  they 
exhaustively  comprehend  the  three  classes, 
correspondent  to  the  three  characters,  of 
men  who  dishonestly  seek  ecclesiastical 
power.     First,  those  who  "creep"  into  the 


27 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

fold ;  who  do  not  care  for  office,  nor  name, 
but  for  secret  influence,  and  do  all  things 
occultly  and  cunningly,  consenting  to  any 
servility  of  office  or  conduct,  so  only  that 
they  may  intimately  discern,  and  unawares 
direct,  the  minds  of  men.  Then  those  who 
"  intrude  "  ( thrust,  that  is )  themselves  into 
the  fold,  who  by  natural  insolence  of  heart, 
and  stout  eloquence  of  tongue,  and  fearlessly 
perseverant  self-assertion,  obtain  hearing  and 
authority  with  the  common  crowd.  Lastly, 
those  who  "climb,"  who,  by  labour  and 
learning,  both  stout  and  sound,  but  selfishly 
exerted  in  the  cause  of  their  own  ambition, 
gain  high  dignities  and  authorities,  and 
become  "lord's  over  the  heritage,"  though 
not  "  ensamples  to  the  flock." 
22.     Now  go  on:  — 

"  Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast, 
Blind  mouths " 

I  pause  again,  for  this  is  a  strange  expres- 
sion :  a  broken  metaphor,  one  might  think, 
careless  and  unscholarly. 

Not  so  ;  its  very  audacity  and  pithiness  are 
intended  to  make  us  look  close  at  the  phrase 
and  remember  it.  Those  two  monosyllables 
express  the  precisely  accurate  contraries  of 
right  character,  in  the  two  great  offices  of 
the  Church  —  those  of  bishop  and  pastor. 


28 


OF    KINGS'   TREASURIES 

A  "  Bishop  "  means  "  a  person  who  sees." 
A  "  Pastor  "  means  "  a  person  who  feeds." 
The  most  unbishoply  character  a  man  can 
have  is  therefore  to  be  Blind. 

The  most  unpastoral  is,  instead  of  feeding, 
to  want  to  be  fed,  —  to  be  a  Mouth. 

Take  the  two  reverses  together,  and  you 
have  "  blind  mouths."  We  may  advisably 
follow  out  this  idea  a  little.  Nearly  all  the 
evils  in  the  Church  have  arisen  from  bishops 
desiring  power  more  than  light.  They  want 
authority,  not  outlook.  Whereas  their  real 
office  is  not  to  rule;  though  it  may  be  vigor- 
ously to  exhort  and  rebuke ;  it  is  the  king's 
office  to  rule  ;  the  bishop's  office  is  to  oversee 
the  flock  ;  to  number  it,  sheep  by  sheep  ;  to 
be  ready  always  to  give  full  account  of  it. 
Now,  it  is  clear  he  cannot  give  account  of 
the  souls,  if  he  has  not  so  much  as  numbered 
the  bodies  of  his  flock.  The  first  thing, 
therefore,  that'a  bishop  has  to  do  is  at  least 
to  put  himself  in  a  position  in  which,  at  any 
moment,  he  can  obtain  the  history,  from 
childhood,  of  every  living  soul  in  his  diocese, 
and  of  its  present  state.  Down  in  that 
back  street,  Bill,  and  Nancy,  knocking  each 
other's  teeth  out !  —  Does  the  bishop  know 
all  about  it?  Has  he  his  eye  upon  them? 
Has  he  had  his  eye  upon  them  ?  Can  he 
circumstantially  explain  to  us  how  Bill  got 


29 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

into  the  habit  of  beating  Nancy  about  the 
head  ?  If  he  cannot  he  is  no  bishop, 
though  he  had  a  mitre  as  high  as  Salisbury 
steeple  ;  he  is  no  bishop,  —  he  has  sought  to 
be  at  the  helm  instead  of  the  masthead;  he 
has  no  sight  of  things.  "  Nay,"  you  say,  "  it 
is  not  his  duty  to  look  after  Bill  in  the  back 
street."  What !  the  fat  sheep  that  have  full 
fleeces  —  you  think  it  is  only  those  he  should 
look  after,  while  (  go  back  to  your  Milton ) 
"  the  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed, 
besides  what  the  grim  wolf,  with  privy  paw  " 
(bishops  knowing  nothing  about  it )  "daily 
devours  apace,  and  nothing  said  "  ? 

"  But  that's  not  our  idea  of  a  bishop."  i 
Perhaps  not ;  but  it  was  St.  Paul's ;  and  it 
was  Milton's.  They  may  be  right,  or  we 
may  be ;  but  w^e  must  not  think  we  are 
reading  either  one  or  the  other  by  putting 
our  meaning  into  their  words. 

23.     I  go  on. 
"  But,  swoln  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw." 

This  is  to  meet  the  vulgar  answer  that "  if 
the  poor  are  not  looked  after  in  their  bodies, 
they  are  in  their  souls  ;  they  have  spiritual 
food." 

And  Milton  says,  "They  have  no  such 
thing  as  spiritual  food ;  they  are  only  swollen 


I  Compare  the  13th  Letter  in  '  Time  and  Tide.' 

30 


OF    KINGS'    TREASURIES 

with  wind."  At  first  you  may  think  that  is  a 
coarse  type,  and  an  obscure  one.  But  again, 
it  is  a  quite  literally  accurate  one.  Take  up 
your  Latin  and  Greek  dictionaries,  and  find 
out  the  meaning  of  "  Spirit."  It  is  only  a 
contraction  of  the  Latin  word  "  breath,"  and 
an  indistinct  translation  of  the  Greek  word 
for  "  wind."  The  same  word  is  used  in 
writing,  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ;  " 
and  in  writing,  '*  So  is  every  one  that  is  born 
of  the  Spirit ; "  born  of  the  breathy  that  is ; 
for  it  means  the  breath  of  God,  in  soul  and 
body.  We  have  the  true  sense  of  it  in  our 
words  "  inspiration  "  and  "  expire."  Now, 
there  are  two  kinds  of  breath  with  which  the 
flock  may  be  filled  ;  God's  breath  and  man's. 
The  breath  of  God  is  health,  and  life,  and 
peace  to  them,  as  the  air  of  heaven  is  to  the 
flocks  on  the  hills ;  but  man's  breath  —  the 
word  which  he  calls  spiritual  —  is  disease  and 
contagion  to  them,  as  the  fog  of  the  fen. 
They  rot  inwardly  with  it ;  they  are  puffed 
up  by  it,  as  a  dead  body  by  the  vapours  of 
its  own  decomposition.  This  is  literally  true 
of  all  false  religious  teaching ;  the  first,  and 
last,  and  fatalest  sign  of  it  is  that  "  puffing 
up."  Your  converted  children,  who  teach 
their  parents;  your  converted  convicts,  who 
teach  honest  men;  your  converted  dunces, 
who,  having  lived  in  cretinous  stupefaction 


31 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

half  their  lives,  suddenly  awaking  to  the  fact 
of  their  being  a  God,  fancy  themselves  there- 
fore His  peculiar  people  and  messengers; 
your  sectarians  of  every  species,  small  and 
great.  Catholic  or  Protestant,  of  high  church 
or  low,  in  so  far  as  they  think  themselves 
exclusively  in  the  right  and  others  wrong; 
and  pre-eminently,  in  every  sect,  those  who 
hold  that  men  can  be  saved  by  thinking 
rightly  instead  of  doing  rightly,  by  work 
instead  of  act,  and  wish  instead  of  work ;  — 
these  are  the  true  fog  children  —  clouds, 
these,  without  water;  bodies,  these,  of  putres- 
cent vapour  and  skin,  without  blood  or  flesh  : 
blown  bag-pipes  for  the  fiends  to  pipe  with 
—  corrupt,  and  corrupting, — "  Swoln  with 
wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw." 

24.  Lastly,  let  us  return  to  the  lines 
respecting  the  power  of  the  keys,  for  now 
we  can  understand  them.  Note  the  differ- 
ence between  Milton  and  Dante  in  their 
interpretation  of  this  power :  for  once,  the 
latter  is  weaker  in  thought ;  he  supposes 
both  the  keys  to  be  of  the  gate  of  heaven ; 
one  is  of  gold,  the  other  of  silver:  they  are 
given  by  St.  Peter  to  the  sentinel  angel ; 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  the  meaning 
either  of  the  substances  of  the  three  steps 
of  the  gate,  or  of  the  two  keys.  But  Milton 
makes  one,  of  gold,  the  key  of  heaven  ;  the 


32 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

other,  of  iron,  the  key  of  the  prison  in  which 
the  wicked  teachers  are  to  be  bound  who 
*'  have  taken  away  the  key  of  knowledge,  yet 
entered  not  in  themselves." 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  bishop 
and  pastor  are  to  see,  and  feed ;  and  of  all 
who  do  so  it  is  said,  "  He  that  watereth, 
shall  be  watered  also  himself."  But  the 
reverse  is  truth  also.  He  that  watereth  not, 
shall  be  withered  himself ;  and  he  that  seeth 
not,  shall  himself  be  shut  out  of  sight  — 
shut  into  the  perpetual  prison-house.  And 
that  prison  opens  here,  as  well  as  hereafter ; 
he  who  is  to  be  bound  in  heaven  must  first 
be  bound  on  earth.  That  command  to  the 
strong  angels,  of  which  the  rock -apostle  is 
the  image,  "Take  him,  and  bind  him  hand 
and  foot,  and  cast  him  out,"  issues,  in  its 
measure,  against  the  teacher,  for  every  help 
withheld,  and  for  every  truth  refused,  and 
for  every  falsehood  enforced ;  so  that  he  is 
more  strictly  fettered  the  more  he  fetters, 
and  farther  outcast,  as  he  more  and  more 
misleads,  till  at  last  the  bars  of  the  iron  cage 
close  upon  him,  and  as  "  the  golden  opes, 
the  iron  shuts  amain." 

25.  We  have  got  something  out  of  the 
lines,  I  think,  and  much  more  is  yet  to  be 
found  in  them;  but  we  have  done  enough 
by  way  of  example  of  the  kind  of  word-by- 


33 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

word  examination  of  your  author  which  is 
rightly  called  '*  reading " ;  watching  every 
accent  and  expression,  and  putting  ourselves 
always  in  the  author's  place,  annihilating  our 
own  personality,  and  seeking  to  enter  into 
his,  so  as  to  be  able  assuredly  to  say,  "  Thus 
Milton  thought,"  not  "Thus  /thought,  in 
mis -reading  Milton."  And  by  this  process 
you  will  gradually  come  to  attach  less  weight 
to  your  own  "  Thus  I  thought "  at  other 
times.  You  will  begin  to  perceive  that  what 
you  thought  was  a  matter  of  no  serious 
importance;  —  that  your  thoughts  on  any 
subject  are  not  perhaps  the  clearest  and 
wisest  that  could  be  arrived  at  thereupon  :  — 
in  fact,  that  unless  you  are  a  very  singular 
person,  you  cannot  be  said  to  have  any 
"  thoughts  "  at  all ;  that  you  have  no  mate- 
rials for  them,  in  any  serious  matters  ;  i  —  no 
right  to  "  think,"  but  only  to  try  to  learn  more 
of  the  facts.  Nay,  most  probably  all  your 
life  (unless,  as  I  said,  you  are  a  singular 
person)  you  will  have  no  legitimate  right  to 
an  "  opinion  "  on  any  business,  except  that 
instantly  under  your  hand.  What  must  of 
necessity  be  done,  you  can  always  find  out, 
beyond  question,  how  to  do.     Have  you  a 

I  Modern  "  education  "  for  the  most  part  signifies 
giving  people  the  faculty  of  thinking  wrong  on  every 
conceivable  subject  of  importance  to  them. 


34 


OF  king's  treasuries 

house  to  keep  in  order,  a  commodity  to  sell, 
a  field  to  plough,  a  ditch  to  cleanse  ?  There 
need  be  no  two  opinions  about  the  proceed- 
ings ;  it  is  at  your  peril  if  you  have  not 
much  more  than  an  "  opinion  "  on  the  way 
to  manage  such  matters.  And  also,  outside 
of  your  own  business,  there  are  one  or  two 
subjects  on  which  you  are  bound  to  have 
but  one  opinion.  That  roguery  and  lying 
are  objectionable,  and  are  instantly  to  be 
flogged  out  of  the  way  whenever  discovered ; 

—  that  covetousness  and  love  of  quarrelling 
are  dangerous  dispositions  even  in  children, 
and  deadly  dispositions  in  men  and  nations ; 

—  that  in  the  end,  the  God  of  heaven  and 
earth  loves  active,  modest,  and  kind  people, 
and  hates  idle,  proud,  greedy,  and  cruel  ones  ; 

—  on  these  general  facts  you  are  bound  to 
have  but  one,  and  that  a  very  strong,  opinion. 
For  the  rest,  respecting  religions,  govern- 
ments, sciences,  arts,  you  will  find  that,  on 
the  whole,  you  can  know  nothing,  —  judge 
nothing;  that  the  best  you  can  do,  even 
though  you  may  be  a  well-educated  person, 
is  to  be  silent,  and  strive  to  be  wiser  every 
day,  and  to  understand  a  little  more  of  the 
thoughts  of  others,  which  so  soon  as  you  try 
to  do  honestly,  you  will  discover  that  the 
thoughts  even  of  the  wisest  are  very  little 
more  than  pertinent  questions.     To  put  the 


35 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

difficulty  into  a  clear  shape,  and  exhibit  to 
you  the  grounds  for  /^decision,  that  is  all 
they  can  generally  do  for  you !  — and  well  for 
them  and  for  us,  if  indeed  they  are  able  "  to 
mix  the  music  with  our  thoughts,  and  sadden 
us  with  heavenly  doubts."  This  writer,  from 
whom  I  have  been  reading  to  you,  is  not 
among  the  first  or  wisest:  he  sees  shrewdly 
as  far  as  he  sees,  and  therefore  it  is  easy  to 
find  out  his  full  meaning;  but  with  the 
greater  men,  you  cannot  fathom  their  mean- 
ing; they  do  not  even  wholly  measure  it 
themselves,  —  it  is  so  wide.  Suppose  I  had 
asked  you,  for  instance,  to  seek  for  Shakes- 
peare's opinion,  instead  of  Milton's,  on  this 
matter  of  Church  authority  ?  —  or  of  Dante's  ? 
Have  any  of  you,  at  this  instant,  the  least 
idea  what  either  thought  about  it?  Have 
you  ever  balanced  the  scene  with  the  bishops 
in  Richard  III.  against  the  character  of 
Cranmer  ?  the  description  of  St.  Francis  and 
St.  Dominic  against  that  of  him  who  made 
Virgil  wonder  to  gaze  upon  him,  —  "disteso, 
tanto  vilmente,  nell'  eterno  esilio  " ;  or  of 
him  whom  Dante  stood  beside,  "  come  '1 
frate  che  confessa  lo  perfido  assassin "  ?  i 
Shakespeare  and  Alighieri  knew  men  better 
than  most  of  us,  I  presume  1  They  were 
both   in   the   midst   of    the   main    struggle 

I  Inf.  xxiii.  125,  126;  xix.  49,  50. 

36 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

between  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers. 
They  had  an  opinion,  we  may  guess.  But 
where  is  it  ?  Bring  it  into  court !  Put 
Shakespeare's  or  Dante's  creed  into  articles, 
and  send  it  up  for  trial  by  the  Ecclesiastical 
Courts  1 

26.  You  will  not  be  able,  I  tell  you  again, 
for  many  and  many  a  day,  to  come  at  the 
real  purposes  and  teaching  of  these  great 
men ;  but  a  very  little  honest  study  of  them 
will  enable  you  to  perceive  that  what  yon 
took  for  your  own  "judgment"  was  mere 
chance  prejudice,  and  drifted,  helpless, 
entangled  weed  of  castaway  thought ;  nay, 
you  will  see  that  most  men's  minds  are 
indeed  little  better  than  rough  heath  wilder- 
ness, neglected  and  stubborn,  partly  barren, 
partly  overgrown  with  pestilent  brakes,  and 
venomous,  wind-sown  herbage  of  evil  sur- 
mise; that  the  first  thing  you  have  to 
do  for  them,  and  yourself,  is  eagerly  and 
scornfully  to  set  fire  to  this;  burn  all  the 
jungle  into  wholesome  ash -heaps,  and  then 
plough  and  sow.  All  the  true  literary 
work  before  you,  for  life,  must  begin  with 
obedience  to  that  order,  "  Break  up  your 
fallow  ground,  and  sow  not  among  thorns.  " 

27.  II.  I  Having  then  faithfully  listened 
to  the  great  teachers,  that  you   may  enter 

I  Compare  §  13  above. 


37 


SESAME    AND   LILIES 

into  their  Thoughts,  you  have  yet  this  higher 
advance  to  make;  —  you  have  to  enter  into 
their  Hearts.  As  you  go  to  them  first  for 
clear  sight,  so  you  must  stay  with  them,  that 
you  may  share  at  last  their  just  and  mighty 
Passion.  Passion,  or  "sensation."  lamnot 
afraid  of  the  word;  still  less  of  the  thing. 
You  have  heard  many  outcries  against 
sensation  lately ;  but,  I  can  tell  you,  it  is  not 
less  sensation  we  want,  but  more.  The 
ennobling  difference  between  one  man  and 
another,  —  between  one  animal  and  another, 
—  is  precisely  in  this,  that  one  feels  more 
than  another.  If  we  were  sponges,  perhaps 
sensation  might  not  be  easily  got  for  us ;  if 
we  were  earth-worms,  liable  at  every  instant 
to  be  cut  in  two  by  the  spade,  perhaps  too 
much  sensation  might  not  be  good  for  us. 
But  being  human  creatures,  it  is  good  for 
us;  nay,  we  are  only  human  in  so  far  as  we 
are  sensitive,  and  our  honour  is  precisely 
in  proportion  to  our  passion. 

28.  You  know  I  said  of  that  great  and 
pure  society  of  the  Dead,  that  it  would  allow 
"  no  vain  or  vulgar  person  to  enter  there.  " 
What  do  you  think  I  meant  by  a  "  vulgar  " 
person  ?  What  do  you  yourselves  mean  by 
"vulgarity".'*  You  will  find  it  a  fruitful 
subject  of  thought;  but,  briefly,  the  essence 
of  all  vulgarity  lies  in  want  of   sensation. 


38 


OF    KINGS'    TREASURIES 

Simple  and  innocent  vulgarity  is  merely  an 
untrained  and  undeveloped  bluntness  of 
body  and  mind  ;  but  in  true  inbred  vulgarity, 
there  is  a  dreadful  callousness,  which,  in 
extremity,  becomes  capable  of  every  sort  of 
bestial  habit  and  crime,  without  fear,  without 
pleasure,  without  horror,  and  without  pity. 
It  is  in  the  blunt  hand  and  the  dead  heart, 
in  the  diseased  habit,  in  the  hardened 
conscience,  that  men  become  vulgar;  they 
are  for  ever  vulgar,  precisely  in  proportion 
as  they  are  incapable  of  sympathy  —  of 
quick  understanding,  —  of  all  that,  in  deep 
insistence  on  the  common,  but  most  accurate 
term,  may  be  called  the  "tact"  or  "  touch - 
faculty,  "  of  body  and  soul :  that  tact  which 
the  Mimosa  has  in  trees,  which  the  pure 
woman  has  above  all  creatures;  —  fineness 
and  fullness  of  sensation,  beyond  reason  ; 
—  the  guide  and  sanctifier  of  reason  itself. 
Reason  can  but  determine  what  is  true :  —  it 
is  the  God -given  passion  of  humanity  which 
alone  can  recognise  what  God  has  made 
good. 

29.  We  come  then  to  that  great  con- 
course of  the  Dead,  not  merely  to  know 
from  them  what  is  true,  but  chiefly  to  feel 
with  them  what  is  just.  Now,  to  feel  with 
them,  we  must  be  like  them;  and  none  of  us 
can  become  that  without  pains.     As  the  true 


39 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

knowledge  is  disciplined  and  tested  knowl- 
edge,—  not  the  first  thought  that  comes, — 
so  the  true  passion  is  disciplined  and  tested 
passion,  —  not  the  first  passion  that  comes. 
The  first  that  come  are  the  vain,  the  false, 
the  treacherous;  if  you  yield  to  them,  they 
will  lead  you  wildly  and  far,  in  vain  pursuit, 
in  hollow  enthusiasm,  till  you  have  no  true 
purpose  and  no  true  passion  left.  Not  that 
any  feeling  possible  to  humanity  is  in  itself 
wrong,  but  only  wrong  when  undisciplined. 
Its  nobility  is  in  its  force  and  justice;  it  is 
wrong  when  it  is  weak,  and  felt  for  paltry 
cause.  There  is  a  mean  wonder,  as  of  a 
child  who  sees  a  juggler  tossing  golden 
balls,  and  this  is  base,  if  you  will.  But  do 
you  think  that  the  wonder  is  ignoble,  or  the 
sensation  less,  with  which  every  human  soul 
is  called  to  watch  the  golden  balls  of  heaven 
tossed  through  the  night  by  the  Hand  that 
made  them  ?  There  is  a  mean  curiosity,  as 
of  a  child  opening  a  forbidden  door,  or  a 
servant  prying  into  her  master's  business ; 
—  and  a  noble  curiosity,  questioning,  in  the 
front  of  danger,  the  source  of  the  great 
river  beyond  the  sand,  —  the  place  of  the 
great  continent  beyond  the  sea  ;  —  a  nobler 
curiosity  still,  which  questions  of  the  source 
of  the  River  of  Life,  and  of  the  space  of  the 
Continent  of   Heaven  —  things  which  "the 


40 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

angels  desire  to  look  into."  So  the  anxiety 
is  ignoble,  with  which  you  linger  over  the 
course  and  catastrophe  of  an  idle  tale ;  but 
do  you  think  the  anxiety  is  less,  or  greater, 
with  which  you  watch,  or  ought  to  watch, 
the  dealings  of  fate  and  destiny  with  the 
life  of  an  agonised  nation  ?  Alas !  it  is 
the  narrowness,  selfishness,  minuteness,  of 
your  sensation  that  you  have  to  deplore  in 
England  at  this  day ;  —  sensation  which 
spends  itself  in  bouquets  and  speeches ;  in 
revellings  and  junketings ;  in  sham  fights 
and  gay  puppet  shows,  while  you  can  look 
on  and  see  noble  nations  murdered,  man  by 
man,  without  an  effort  or  a  tear. 

30.  I  said  "minuteness"  and  "selfish- 
ness "  of  sensation,  but  it  would  have  been 
enough  to  have  said  "injustice"  or  "unright- 
eousness "  of  sensation.  For  as  in  nothing 
is  a  gentleman  better  to  be  discerned  from 
a  vulgar  person,  so  in  nothing  is  a  gentle 
nation  (such  nations  have  been)  better  to  be 
discerned  from  a  mob,  than  in  this,  —  that 
their  feelings  are  constant  and  just,  results 
of  due  contemplation,  and  of  equal  thought. 
You  can  talk  a  mob  into  anything;  its  feel- 
ings may  be  —  usually  are  —  on  the  whole, 
generous  and  right ;  but  it  has  no  foundation 
for  them,  no  hold  of  them ;  you  may  teas^  or 
tickle  it  into  any,  at  your  pleasure ;  it  thinks 


41 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

by  infection,  for  the  most  part,  catching  an 
opinion  like  a  cold,  and  there  is  nothing  so 
little  that  it  will  not  roar  itself  wild  about, 
when  the  fit  is  on  ;  —  nothing  so  great  but  it 
will  forget  in  an  hour,  when  the  fit  is  past. 
But  a  gentleman's,  or  a  gentle  nation's, 
passions  are  just,  measured,  and  continuous. 
A  great  nation,  for  instance,  does  not  spend 
its  entire  national  wits  for  a  couple  of 
months  in  weighing  evidence  of  a  single 
ruffian's  having  done  a  single  murder ;  and 
for  a  couple  of  years  see  its  own  children 
murder  each  other  by  their  thousands  or 
tens  of  thousands  a  day,  considering  only 
what  the  effect  is  likely  to  be  on  the  price 
of  cotton,  and  caring  nowise  to  determine 
which  side  of  battle  is  in  the  wrong.  Neither 
does  a  great  nation  send  its  poor  little  boys 
to  jail  for  stealing  six  walnuts ;  and  allow  its 
bankrupts  to  steal  their  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands with  a  bow,  and  its  bankers,  rich  with 
poor  men's  savings,  to  close  their  doors 
"  under  circumstances  over  which  they  have 
no  control,"  with  a  "by  your  leave";  and 
large  landed  estates  to  be  bought  by  men 
who  have  made  their  money  by  going  with 
armed  steamers  up  and  down  the  China 
Seas,  selling  opium  at  the  cannon's  mouth, 
and  altering,  for  the  benefit  of  the  foreign 
nation,  the  common  highwayman's  demand 


42 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

of  "  your  money  or  your  life,"  into  that  of 
"  your  money  and  your  life."  Neither  does 
a  great  nation  allow  the  lives  of  its  innocent 
poor  to  be  parched  out  of  them  by  fog  fever, 
and  rotted  out  of  them  by  dunghill  plague, 
for  the  sake  of  sixpence  a  life  extra  per  week 
to  its  landlords ;  ^  and  then  debate,  with 
drivelling  tears,  and  diabolical  sympathies, 
whether  it  ought  not  piously  to  save,  and 
nursingly  cherish,  the  lives  of  its  murderers. 
Also,  a  great  nation  having  made  up  its 
mind  that  hanging  is  quite  the  wholesomest 
process  for  its  homicides  in  general,  can  yet 
with  mercy  distinguish  between  the  degrees 
of  guilt  in  homicides;  and  does  not  yelp 
like  a  pack  of  frost-pinched  wolf-cubs  on  the 
blood-track  of  an  unhappy  crazed  boy,  or 
grey -haired  clodpate  Othello,  **  perplexed  i' 
the  extreme,"  at  the  very  moment  that  it  is 
sending  a  Minister  of  the  Crown  to  make 
polite  speeches  to  a  man  who  is  bayoneting 
young  girls  in  their  fathers'  sight,  and  killing 
noble  youths  in  cool  blood,  faster  than  a 
country  butcher  kills  lambs  in  spring.  And, 
lastly,  a  great  nation  does  not  mock  Heaven 
and  its  Powers,  by  pretending  belief  in  a 
revelation  which  asserts  the  love  of  money 

I  See  note  at  end  of  lecture-  I  have  put  it  in  large 
type,  because  the  course  of  matters  since  it  was  written 
has  made  it  perhaps  better  worth  attention. 


43 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

to  be  the  root  of  all  evil,  and  declaring,  at 
the  same  time,  that  it  is  actuated,  and 
intends  to  be  actuated,  in  all  chief  national 
deeds  and  measures,  by  no  other  love. 

31.  My  friends,  I  do  not  know  why  any 
of  us  should  talk  about  reading.  We  want 
some  sharper  discipline  than  that  of  reading; 
but,  at  all  events,  be  assured,  we  cannot 
read.  No  reading  is  possible  for  a  people 
with  its  mind  in  this  state.  No  sentence 
of  any  great  writer  is  intelligible  to  them. 
It  is  simply  and  sternly  impossible  for  the 
English  public,  at  this  moment,  to  under- 
stand any  thoughtful  writing,  —  so  incapable 
of  thought  has  it  become  in  its  insanity  of 
avarice.  Happily,  our  disease  is,  as  yet, 
little  worse  than  this  incapacity  of  thought ; 
it  is  not  corruption  of  the  inner  nature;  we 
ring  true  still,  when  anything  strikes  home 
to  us  ;  and  though  the  idea  that  everything 
should  "  pay  "  has  infected  our  every  purpose 
so  deeply,  that  even  when  we  would  play  the 
good  Samaritan,  we  never  take  out  our  two- 
pence and  give  them  to  the  host,  without 
saying,  "  When  I  come  again,  thou  shalt 
give  me  fourpence,"  there  is  a  capacity  of 
noble  passion  left  in  our  hearts*  core.  We 
show  it  in  our  work  —  in  our  war,  —  even  in 
those  unjust  domestic  affections  which  make 
us  furious  at  a  small   private  wrong,  while 


44 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

we  are  polite  to  a  boundless  public  one  :  we 
are  still  industrious  to  the  last  hour  of  the 
day,  though  we  add  the  gambler's  fury  to 
the  labourer's  patience ;  we  are  still  brave 
to  the  death,  though  incapable  of  discerning 
true  cause  for  battle;  and  are  still  true  in 
affection  to  our  own  flesh,  to  the  death,  as 
the  sea-monsters  are,  and  the  rock -eagles. 
And  there  is  hope  for  a  nation  while  this 
can  be  still  said  of  it.  As  long  as  it  holds 
its  life  in  its  hand,  ready  to  give  it  for  its 
honour  (though  a  foolish  honour),  for  its  love 
(though  a  selfish  love),  and  for  its  business 
(though  a  base  business),  there  is  hope  for 
it.  But  hope  only;  for  this  instinctive, 
reckless  virtue  cannot  last.  No  nation  can 
last,  which  has  made  a  mob  of  itself,  how- 
ever generous  at  heart.  It  must  discipline 
its  passions,  and  direct  them,  or  they  will 
discipline  //,  one  day,  with  scorpion-whips. 
Above  all,  a  nation  cannot  last  as  a  money- 
making  mob:  it  cannot  with  impunity, — 
it  cannot  with  existence,  —  go  on  despising 
literature,  despising  science,  despising  art, 
despising  nature,  despising  compassion,  and 
concentrating  its  soul  on  Pence.  Do  you 
think  these  are  harsh  or  wild  words  ?  Have 
patience  with  me  but  a  little  longer.  I  will 
prove  their  truth  to  you,  clause  by  clause. 
32.     I.     I  say  first  we  have  despised  liter- 


45 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

ature.  What  do  we,  as  a  nation,  care  about 
books  ?  How  much  do  you  think  we  spend 
altogether  on  our  libraries,  public  or  private, 
as  compared  with  what  we  spend  on  our 
horses?  If  a  man  spends  lavishly  on  his 
library,  you  call  him  mad  —  a  bibliomaniac. 
But  you  never  call  any  one  a  horse- maniac, 
though  men  ruin  themselves  every  day  by 
their  horses,  and  you  do  not  hear  of  people 
ruining  themselves  by  their  books.  Or,  to 
go  lower  still,  how  much  do  you  think  the 
contents  of  the  book-shelves  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  public  and  private,  would  fetch, 
as  compared  with  the  contents  of  its  wine- 
cellars  ?  What  position  would  its  expendi- 
ture on  literature  take,  as  compared  with  its 
expenditure  on  luxurious  eating  .?  We  talk 
of  food  for  the  mind,  as  of  food  for  the 
body  :  now  a  good  book  contains  such  food 
inexhaustibly ;  it  is  a  provision  for  life,  and 
for  the  best  part  of  us ;  yet  how  long  most 
people  would  look  at  the  best  book  before 
they  would  give  the  price  of  a  large  turbot 
for  it  1  Though  there  have  been  men  who 
have  pinched  their  stomachs  and  bared  their 
backs  to  buy  a  book,  whose  libraries  were 
cheaper  to  them,  I  think,  in  the  end,  than 
most  men's  dinners  are.  We  are  few  of  us 
put  to  such  trial,  and  more  the  pity;  for, 
indeed,   a  precious   thing   is    all   the    more 


46 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

precious  to  us  if  it  has  been  won  by  work  or 
economy ;  and  if  public  libraries  were  half  as 
costly  as  public  dinners,  or  books  cost  the 
tenth  part  of  what  bracelets  do,  even  foolish 
men  and  women  might  sometimes  suspect 
there  was  good  in  reading,  as  well  as  in 
munching  and  sparkling;  whereas  the  very 
cheapness  of  literature  is  making  even  wise 
people  forget  that  if  a  book  is  worth  read- 
ing, it  is  worth  buying.  No  book  is  worth 
anything  which  is  not  worth  much;  nor  is  it 
serviceable,  until  it  has  been  read,  and  re-  read, 
and  loved,  and  loved  again  ;  and  marked,  so 
that  you  can  refer  to  the  passages  you  want 
in  it,  as  a  soldier  can  seize  the  weapon  he 
needs  in  an  armoury,  or  a  housewife  bring 
the  spice  she  needs  from  her  store.  Bread 
of  flour  is  good;  but  there  is  bread,  sweet  as 
honey,  if  we  would  eat  it,  in  a  good  book; 
and  the  family  must  be  poor  indeed  which, 
once  in  their  lives,  cannot,  for  such  multi- 
pliable  barley-loaves,  pay  their  baker's  bill. 
We  call  ourselves  a  rich  nation,  and  we  are 
filthy  and  foolish  enough  to  thumb  each 
other's  books  out  of  circulating  libraries ! 

33.  II.  I  say  we  have  despised  science. 
"  What ! "  you  exclaim,  "  are  we  not  fore- 
most in  all  discovery,!  and  is  not  the  whole 

I  Since  this  was  written,  the  answer  has  become 
definitely  —  No  ;  we  having   surrendered  the  field  of 


47 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

world  giddy  by  reason,  or  unreason,  of  our 
inventions?"  Yes,  but  do  you  suppose  that 
is  national  work  ?  That  work  is  all  done  in 
spite  of  the  nation;  by  private  people's  zeal 
and  money.  We  are  glad  enough,  indeed, 
to  make  our  profit  of  science;  we  snap  up 
anything  in  the  way  of  a  scientific  bone  that 
has  meat  on  it,  eagerly  enough;  but  if  the 
scientific  man  comes  for  a  bone  or  a  crust 
to  us^  that  is  another  story.  What  have  we 
publicly  done  for  science  ?  We  are  obliged 
to  know  what  o'clock  it  is,  for  the  safety  of 
our  ships,  and  therefore  we  pay  for  an  Observ- 
atory; and  we  allow  ourselves,  in  the  person 
of  our  Parliament,  to  be  annually  tormented 
into  doing  something,  in  a  slovenly  way,  for 
the  British  Museum ;  sullenly  apprehending 
that  to  be  a  place  for  keeping  stuffed  birds 
in,  to  amuse  our  children.  If  anybody  will 
pay  for  their  own  telescope,  and  resolve 
another  nebula,  we  cackle  over  the  discern- 
ment as  if  it  were  our  own ;  if  one  in  ten 
thousand  of  our  hunting  squires  suddenly 
perceives  that  the  earth  was  indeed  made  to 
be  something  else  than  a  portion  for  foxes, 
and  burrows  in  it  himself,  and  tells  us  where 
the  gold  is,  and  where  the  coals,  we  under- 
stand that  there  is  some  use  in  that ;  and  very 

Arctic  discovery  to  the  Continental  nations,  as  being 
ourselves  too  poor  to  pay  for  ships. 


48 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

properly  knight  him :  but  is  the  accident  of 
his  having  found  out  how  to  employ  himself 
usefully  any  credit  to  us  ?  (The  negation  of 
such  discovery  among  his  brother  squires 
may  perhaps  be  some  ^/jcredit  to  us,  if  we 
would  consider  of  it.)  But  if  you  doubt 
these  generalities,  here  is  one  fact  for  us  all 
to  meditate  upon,  illustrative  of  our  love  of 
science.  Two  years  ago  there  was  a  collec- 
tion of  the  fossils  of  Solenhofen  to  be  sold 
in  Bavaria :  the  best  in  existence,  containing 
many  specimens  unique  for  perfectness,  and 
one,  unique  as  an  example  of  a  species  (a 
whole  kingdom  of  unknown  living  creatures 
being  announced  by  that  fossil).  This 
collection,  of  which  the  mere  market  worth, 
among  private  buyers,  would  probably  have 
been  some  thousand  or  twelve  hundred 
pounds,  was  offered  to  the  English  nation 
for  seven  hundred  :  but  we  would  not  give 
seven  hundred,  and  the  whole  series  would 
have  been  in  the  Munich  museum  at  this 
moment,  if  Professor  Owen  i  had  not,  with 
loss  of  his  own  time,  and  patient  tormenting 
of  the  British  public  in  person  of  its  repre- 

I  I  state  this  fact  without  Professor  Owen's  permis- 
sion, which  of  course  he  could  not  with  propriety  have 
granted,  had  I  asked  it ;  but  I  consider  it  so  important 
that  the  public  should  be  aware  of  the  fact,  that  I  do 
what  seems  to  me  right,  though  rude. 


49 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

sentatives,  got  leave  to  give  four  hundred 
pounds  at  once,  and  himself  become  answer- 
able for  the  other  three!  which  the  said 
public  will  doubtless  pay  him  eventually,  but 
sulkily,  and  caring  nothing  about  the  matter 
all  the  while ;  only  always  ready  to  cackle 
if  any  credit  comes  of  it.  Consider,  I  beg 
of  you,  arithmetically,  what  this  fact  means. 
Your  annual  expenditure  for  public  purposes 
(a  third  of  it  for  military  apparatus,)  is 
at  least  fifty  millions.  Now  ;^700  is  to 
;£'5o,ooo,ooo,  roughly,  as  sevenpence  to  two 
thousand  pounds.  Suppose,  then,  a  gentle- 
man of  unknown  income,  but  whose  wealth 
was  to  be  conjectured  from  the  fact  that  he 
spent  two  thousand  a  year  on  his  park  walls 
and  footmen  only,  professes  himself  fond 
of  science ;  and  that  one  of  his  servants 
comes  eagerly  to  tell  him  that  an  unique 
collection  of  fossils,  giving  clue  to  a  new 
era  of  creation,  is  to  be  had  for  the  sum  of 
sevenpence  sterling;  and  that  the  gentle- 
man, who  is  fond  of  science,  and  spends  two 
thousand  a  year  on  his  park,  answers,  after 
keeping  his  servant  waiting  several  months, 
"  Well !  I'll  give  you  fourpeijce  for  them,  if 
you  w^ill  be  answerable  for  the  extra  three- 
pence yourself,  till  next  year  !  " 

34.     III.     I  say  you  have  despised  Art  1 
"  What !  "  you  again  answer,  "  have  we  not 


SO 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

Art  exhibitions,  miles  long  ?  and  do  not  we 
pay  thousands  of  pounds  for  single  pictures  ? 
and  have  we  not  Art  schools  and  institutions, 
more  than  ever  nation  had  before  ?  "  Yes, 
truly,  but  all  that  is  for  the  sake  of  the  shop. 
You  would  fain  sell  canvas  as  well  as  coals, 
and  crockery  as  well  as  iron ;  you  would 
take  every  other  nation's  bread  out  of  its 
mouth  if  you  could ;  i  not  being  able  to 
do  that,  your  ideal  of  life  is  to  stand  in 
the  thoroughfares  of  the  world,  like  Ludgate 
apprentices,  screaming  to  every  passer-by, 
"  What  d'ye  lack?"  You  know  nothing  of 
your  own  faculties  or  circumstances ;  you 
fancy  that,  among  your  damp,  flat,  fat  fields 
of  clay,  you  can  have  as  quick  art-fancy  as 
the  Frenchman  among  his  bronzed  vines,  or 
the  Italian  under  his  volcanic  cliffs  ;  —  that 
Art  may  be  learned  as  book-keeping  is,  and 
when  learned,  will  give  you  more  books  to 
keep.  You  care  for  pictures,  absolutely,  no 
more  than  you  do  for  the  bills  pasted  on  your 
dead  walls.  There  is  always  room  on  the 
wall  for  the  bills  to  be  read,  —  never  for  the 
pictures  to  be  seen.     You  do  not  know  what 

I  That  was  our  real  idea  of  "  Free  Trade"  —  "All 
the  trade  to  myself."  You  find  now  that  by  *'  competi- 
tion "  other  people  can  manage  to  sell  something  as 
well  as  you  —  and  now  we  call  for  Protection  again. 
Wretches ! 


51 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

pictures  you  have  (by  repute)  in  the  country, 
nor  whether  they  are  false  or  true,  nor 
whether  they  are  taken  care  of  or  not;  in 
foreign  countries,  you  calmly  see  the  noblest 
existing  pictures  in  the  world  rotting  in 
abandoned  wreck  —  (in  Venice  you  saw  the 
Austrian  guns  deliberately  pointed  at  the 
palaces  containing  them),  and  if  you  heard 
that  all  the  fine  pictures  in  Europe  were 
made  into  sand-bags  to-morrow  on  the 
Austrian  forts,  it  would  not  trouble  you  so 
much  as  the  chance  of  a  brace  or  two  of 
game  less  in  your  own  bags,  in  a  day's 
shooting.  That  is  your  national  love  of  Art. 
35.  IV.  You  have  despised  nature;  that 
is  to  say,  all  the  deep  and  sacred  sensations 
of  natural  scenery.  The  French  revolu- 
tionists made  stables  of  the  cathedrals  of 
France ;  you  have  made  racecourses  of  the 
cathedrals  of  the  earth.  Your  one  conception 
of  pleasure  is  to  drive  in  railroad  carriages 
round  their  aisles,  and  eat  off  their  altars. i 
You  have  put  a  railroad-bridge  over  the  falls 
of  Schaffhausen.      You  have  tunnelled  the 


I  I  meant  that  the  beautiful  places  of  the  world  — 
Switzerland,  Italy,  South  Germany,  and  so  on  —  are, 
indeed,  the  truest  cathedrals  —  places  to  be  reverent  in, 
and  to  worship  in ;  and  that  we  only  care  to  drive 
through  them ;  and  to  eat  and  drink  at  their  most 
sacred  places. 


52 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

cliffs  of  Lucerne  by  Tell's  chapel ;  you  have 
destroyed  the  Clarens  shore  of  the  Lake 
of  Geneva ;  there  is  not  a  quiet  valley  in 
England  that  you  have  not  filled  with 
bellowing  fire;  there  is  no  particle  left  of 
English  land  which  you  have  not  trampled 
coal  ashes  intoi  —  nor  any  foreign  city  in 
which  the  spread  of  your  presence  is  not 
marked  among  its  fair  old  streets  and  happy 
gardens  by  a  consuming  white  leprosy  of 
new  hotels  and  perfumers'  shops :  the  Alps 
themselves,  which  your  own  poets  used  to 
love  so  reverently,  you  look  upon  as  soaped 
poles  in  a  bear-garden,  which  you  set  your- 
selves to  climb  and  slide  down  again,  with 
"shrieks  of  delight."  When  you  are  past 
shrieking,  having  no  human  articulate  voice 
to  say  you  are  glad  with,  you  fill  the  quietude 
of  their  valleys  with  gunpowder  blasts,  and 
rush  home,  red  with  cutaneous  eruption  of 
conceit,  and  voluble  with  convulsive  hiccough 
of  self-satisfaction.  I  think  nearly  the  two 
sorrowfullest  spectacles  I  have  ever  seen  in 
humanity,  taking  the  deep  inner  significance 
of  them,  are  the  English  mobs  in  the  valley 
of  Chamouni,  amusing  themselves  with  firing 

I  I  was  singularly  struck,  some  years  ago,  by  finding 
all  the  river  shore  at  Richmond,  in  Yorkshire,  black  in 
its  earth,  from  the  mere  drift  of  soot-laden  air  from 
places  many  miles  away. 


53 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

rusty  howitzers ;  and  the  Swiss  vintagers  of 
Zurich  expressing  their  Christian  thanks  for 
the  gift  of  the  vine,  by  assembling  in  knots 
in  the  "towers  of  the  vineyards,"  and  slowly 
loading  and  firing  horse -pistols  from  morn- 
ing till  evening.  It  is  pitiful  to  have  dim 
conceptions  of  duty;  more  pitiful,  it  seems 
to  me,  to  have  conceptions  like  these,  of 
mirth. 

36.  Lastly.  You  despise  compassion. 
There  is  no  need  of  words  of  mine  for 
proof  of  this.  I  will  merely  print  one  of  the 
newspaper  paragraphs  which  I  am  in  the 
habit  of  cutting  out  and  throwing  into  my 
store-drawer ;  here  is  one  from  a  '  Daily 
Telegraph  '  of  an  early  date  this  year  (1867) ; 
(date  which,  though  by  me  carelessly  left 
unmarked,  is  easily  discoverable  ;  for  on  the 
back  of  the  slip,  there  is  the  announcement 
that  *'  yesterday  the  seventh  of  the  special 
services  of  this  year  was  performed  by  the 
Bishop  of  Ripon  in  St.  Paul's " ; )  it  relates 
only  one  of  such  facts  as  happen  now  daily; 
this  by  chance  having  taken  a  form  in  which 
it  came  before  the  coroner.  I  will  print  the 
paragraph  in  red.  Be  sure,  the  facts  them- 
selves are  written  in  that  colour,  in  a  book 
which  we  shall  all  of  us,  literate  or  illiterate, 
have  to  read  our  page  of,  some  day. 


54 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 

An  inquiry  was  held  on  Friday  by  Mr. 
Richards,  deputy  coroner,  at  the  White 
Horse  tavern,  Christ  Church,  Spitalfields, 
respecting  the  death  of  Michael  Collins, 
aged  58  years.  Mary  Collins,  a  miserable - 
looking  woman,  said  that  she  lived  with  the 
deceased  and  his  son  in  a  room  at  2,  Cobb's 
Court,  Christ  Church.  Deceased  was  a 
"translator"  of  boots.  Witness  went  out 
and  bought  old  boots ;  deceased  and  his 
son  made  them  into  good  ones,  and  then 
witness  sold  them  for  what  she  could  get 
at  the  shops,  which  was  very  little  indeed. 
Deceased  and  his  son  used  to  work  night 
and  day  to  try  and  get  a  little  bread  and  tea, 
and  pay  for  the  room  (  2s.  a  week ),  so  as  to 
keep  the  home  together.  On  Friday-night 
week  deceased  got  up  from  his  bench  and 
began  to  shiver.  He  threw  down  the  boots, 
saying,  "  Somebody  else  must  finish  them 
when  I  am  gone,  for  I  can  do  no  more." 
There  was  no  fire,  and  he  said,  '*  I  would  be 
better  if  I  was  warm."  Witness  therefore 
took  two  pairs  of  translated  boots  '  to  sell  at 
the  shop,  but  she  could  only  get  14^.  for  the 


I  One  of  the  things  which  we  must  very  resolutely 
enforce,  for  the  good  of  all  classes,  in  our  future 
arrangements,  must  be  that  they  wear  no  "  translated  " 
article  of  dress.     See  the  preface. 


55 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

two  pairs,  for  the  people  at  the  shop  said, 
"We  must  have  our  profit."  Witness  got 
141b.  of  coal,  and  a  little  tea  and  bread. 
Her  son  sat  up  the  whole  night  to  make  the 
"  translations,"  to  get  money,  but  deceased 
died  on  Saturday  morning.  The  family  never 
had  enough  to  eat.  —  Coroner :  "  It  seems  to 
me  deplorable  that  you  did  not  go  into  the 
workhouse."  Witness :  "  We  wanted  the 
comforts  of  our  little  home."  A  juror  asked 
what  the  comforts  were,  for  he  only  saw  a 
little  straw  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  the 
windows  of  which  were  broken.  The  witness 
began  to  cry,  and  said  that  they  had  a  quilt 
and  other  little  things.  The  deceased  said 
he  never  would  go  into  the  workhouse.  In 
summer,  when  the  season  was  good,  they 
sometimes  made  as  much  as  ioj.  profit  in 
the  week.  They  then  always  saved  towards 
the  next  week,  which  was  generally  a  bad 
one.  In  winter  they  made  not  half  so  much. 
For  three  years  they  had  been  getting  from 
bad  to  worse.  —  Cornelius  Collins  said  that 
he  had  assisted  his  father  since  1847.  They 
used  to  work  so  far  into  the  night  that  both 
nearly  lost  their  eyesight.  Witness  now 
had  a  film  over  his  eyes.  Five  years  ago 
deceased  applied  to  the  parish  for  aid.  The 
relieving  officer  gave  him  a  41b.  loaf,  and 
told  him  if  he  came  again  he  should  get  the 

56 


OF   KINGS*   TREASURIES 

"  Stones."  »      That  disgusted  deceased,  and 
he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  them  since. 


I  This  abbreviation  of  the  penalty  of  useless  labour 
is  curiously  coincident  in  verbal  form  with  a  certain 
passage  which  some  of  us  may  remember.  It  may 
perhaps  be  well  to  preserve  beside  this  paragraph 
another  cutting  out  of  my  store-drawer,  from  the 
*  Morning  Post,'  of  about  a  parallel  date,  Friday,  March 

loth,  1865  :  —  **  The  salons  of  Mme.  C ,  who  did  the 

honours  with  clever  imitative  grace  and  elegance,  were 
crowded  with  princes,  dukes,  marquises,  and  counts  — 
in  fact,  with  the  same  male  company  as  one  meets  at 
the  parties  of  the  Princess  Metternich  and  Madame 
Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  Some  English  peers  and  members 
of  Parliament  were  present,  and  appeared  to  enjoy  the 
animated  and  dazzling  improper  scene.  On  the  second 
floor  the  supper  tables  were  loaded  with  every  delicacy 
of  the  season.  That  your  readers  may  form  some  idea 
of  the  dainty  fare  of  the  Parisian  demi-monde,  I  copy 
the  menu  of  the  supper,  which  was  served  to  all  the 
guests  (about  200)  seated  at  four  o'clock.  Choice 
Yquem,  Johannisberg,  Laffitte,  Tokay,  and  champagne 
of  the  finest  vintages  were  served  most  lavishly 
throughout  the  morning.  After  supper  dancing  was 
resumed  with  increased  animation,  and  the  ball  termi- 
nated with  a  cbatne  diabolique  and  a  cancan  d'enfer  at 
seven  in  the  morning.  (Morning  service  —  'Ere  the 
fresh  lawns  appeared,  under  the  opening  eyelids  of  the 
Mom.')  Here  is  the  menu  :  —  *  Consomm^  de  volaille 
k  la  Bagration  :  16  hors-d'oeuvres  varies.  Bouchees  k 
la  Talleyrand.  Saumons  froids,  sauce  Ravigote.  Filets 
de  boeuf  en  Bellevue,  timbales  milanaises,  chaudfroid 
de  gibier.  Dindes  truffles.  Vttis  de  foies  gras,  buis- 
sons  d'^crevisses,  salades  v^n^tiennes,  geMes  blanches 
aux  fruits,  gateaux  mancini,  parisiens  et  parisiennes. 
Fromages  glacis.    Ananas.     Dessert.'" 


57 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

They  got  worse  and  worse  until  last  Friday 
week,  when  they  had  not  even  a  halfpenny 
to  buy  a  candle.  Deceased  then  lay  down 
on  the  straw,  and  said  he  could  not  live  till 
morning. —  A  juror:  "You  are  dying  of 
starvation  yourself,  and  you  ought  to  go  into 
the  house  until  the  summer."  —  Witness : 
**  If  we  went  in,  we  should  die.  When  we 
come  out  in  the  summer,  we  should  be  like 
people  dropped  from  the  sky.  No  one 
would  know  us,  and  we  would  not  have  even 
a  room.  I  could  work  now  if  I  had  food, 
for  my  sight  would  get  better."  Dr.  G.  P. 
Walker  said  deceased  died  from  syncope, 
from  exhaustion  from  want  of  food.  The 
deceased  had  had  no  bedclothes.  For  four 
months  he  had  had  nothing  but  bread  to 
eat.  There  was  not  a  particle  of  fat  in  the 
body.  There  was  no  disease,  but  if  there 
had  been  medical  attendance,  he  might  have 
survived  the  syncope  or  fainting.  The 
coroner  having  remarked  upon  the  painful 
nature  of  the  case,  the  jury  returned  the 
following  verdict,  *'  That  deceased  died  from 
exhaustion  from  want  of  food  and  the  com- 
mon necessaries  of  life ;  also  through  want 
of  medical  aid." 

37.  **  Why  would  witness  not  go  into  the 
workhouse  ? "  you  ask.  Well,  the  poor  seem 
to  have  a  prejudice  against  the  workhouse 


58 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

which  the  rich  have  not ;  for  of  course  every 
one  who  takes  a  pension  from  Government 
goes  into  the  workhouse  on  a  grand  scale  :  i 
only  the  workhouses  for  the  rich  do  not 
involve  the  idea  of  work,  and  should  be 
called  play-houses.  But  the  poor  like  to  die 
independently,  it  appears ;  perhaps  if  we 
made  the  play-houses  for  them  pretty  and 
pleasant  enough,  or  gave  them  their  pen- 
sions at  home,  and  allowed  them  a  little 
introductory  peculation  with  the  public 
money,  their  minds  might  be  reconciled  to 
the  conditions.  Meantime,  here  are  the 
facts :  we  make  our  relief  either  so  insulting 
to  them,  or  so  painful,  that  they  rather  die 
than  take  it  at  our  hands ;  or,  for  third 
alternative,  we  leave  them  so  untaught  and 
foolish  that  they  starve  like  brute  creatures, 
wild  and  dumb,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  or 
what  to  ask.  I  say,  you  despise  compassion  ; 
if  you  did  not,  such  a  newspaper  paragraph 
would  be  as  impossible  in  a  Christian  coun- 
try as  a  deliberate  assassination  permitted 
in  its   public   streets. 2     "Christian"  did  I 


1  Please  observe  this  statement,  and  think  of  it,  and 
consider  how  it  happens  that  a  poor  old  woman  will  be 
ashamed  to  take  a  shilling  a  week  from  the  country  — 
but  no  one  is  ashamed  to  take  a  pension  of  a  thousand 
a  year. 

2  I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  such  a  paper  as  the  *  Pall 


59 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

say  ?  Alas,  if  we  were  but  wholesomely 
««-Christian,  it  would  be  impossible:  it  is 
our  imaginary  Christianity  that  helps  us  to 
commit  these  crimes,  for  we  revel  and  luxuri- 
ate in  our  faith,  for  the  lewd  sensation  of  it ; 
dressing  it  up,  like  everything  else,  in  fiction. 
The  dramatic  Christianity  of  the  organ  and 
aisle,  of  dawn-service  and  twilight-revival  — 
the   Christianity   which  we  do  not  fear  to 

Mall  Gazette '  established ;  for  the  power  of  the  press 
in  the  hands  of  highly-educated  men,  in  independent 
position,  and  of  honest  purpose,  may  indeed  become  all 
that  it  has  been  hitherto  vainly  vaunted  to  be.  Its 
editor  will  therefore,  I  doubt  not,  pardon  me,  in  that, 
by  very  reason  of  my  respect  for  the  journal,  I  do  not 
let  pass  unnoticed  an  article  in  its'third  number,  page 
5,  which  was  wrong  in  every  word  of  it,  with  the  intense 
wrongness  which  only  an  honest  man  can  achieve  who 
has  taken  a  false  turn  of  thought  in  the  outset,  and  is 
following  it,  regardless  of  consequences.  It  contained 
at  the  end  this  notable  passage  :  — 

"  The  bread  of  affliction,  and  the  water  of  affliction  — 
aye,  and  the  bedstead  and  blankets  of  affliction,  are  the 
very  utmost  that  the  law  ought  to  give  to  outcasts 
merely  as  outcasts."  I  merely  put  beside  this  expres- 
sion of  the  gentlemanly  mind  of  England  in  1865,  a  part 
of  the  message  which  Isaiah  was  ordered  to  **  lift  up  his 
voice  like  a  trumpet "  in  declaring  to  the  gentlemen  of 
his  day  :  "  Ye  fast  for  strife,  and  to  smite  with  the  fist 
of  wickedness.  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen, 
to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring 
the  poor  that  are  cast  out  (margin,  *  afflicted')  to  thy 
house  ?  "  The  falsehood  on  which  the  writer  had  men- 
tally founded  himself,  as  previously  stated  by  him,  was 


60 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

mix  the  mockery  of,  pictorially,  with  our 
play  about  the  devil,  in  our  Satanellas, — 
Roberts,  —  Fausts ;  chanting  hymns  through 
traceried  windows  for  background  effect,  and 
artistically  modulating  the  "  Dio  "  through 
variation  on  variation  of  mimicked  prayer: 
( while  we  distribute  tracts,  next  day,  for 
the  benefit  of  uncultivated  swearers,  upon 
what  we  suppose  to  be  the  signification 
of  the  Third  Commandment;  — )  this  gas- 
lighted,  and  gas -inspired,  Christianity,  we 
are  triumphant  in,  and  draw  back  the  hem  of 
our  robes  from  the  touch  of  the  heretics  who 
dispute  it.  But  to  do  a  piece  of  common 
Christian  righteousness  in  a  plain  English 
word  or  deed;    to  make  Christian  law  any 

this  :  "  To  confound  the  functions  of  the  dispensers  of 
the  poor-rates  with  those  of  the  dispensers  of  a  charita- 
ble institution  is  a  great  and  pernicious  error."  This 
sentence  is  so  accurately  and  exquisitely  wrong,  that  its 
substance  must  be  thus  reversed  in  our  minds  before 
we  can  deal  with  any  existing  problem  of  national 
distress.  "  To  understand  that  the  dispensers  of  the 
poor-rates  are  the  almoners  of  the  nation,  and  should 
distribute  its  alms  with  a  gentleness  and  freedom  of 
hand  as  much  greater  and  franker  than  that  possible  to 
individual  charity,  as  the  collective  national  wisdom 
and  power  may  be  supposed  greater  than  those  of  any 
single  person,  is  the  foundation  of  all  law  respecting 
pauperism."  (Since  this  was  written  the  'Pall  Mall 
Gazette '  has  become  a  mere  party  paper  —  like  the 
rest ;  but  it  writes  well,  and  does  more  good  than 
mischief  on  the  whole.) 


6i 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

rule  of  life,  and  found  one  National  act  or 
hope  thereon,  —  we  know  too  well  what  our 
faith  comes  to  for  that !  You  might  sooner 
get  lightning  out  of  incense  smoke  than 
true  action  or  passion  out  of  your  modern 
English  religion.  You  had  better  get  rid  of 
the  smoke,  and  the  organ  pipes,  both :  leave 
them,  and  the  Gothic  windows,  and  the 
painted  glass,  to  the  property  man ;  give  up 
your  carburetted  hydrogen  ghost  in  one 
healthy  expiration,  and  look  after  Lazarus 
at  the  doorstep.  For  there  is  a  true  Church 
wherever  one  hand  meets  another  helpfully, 
and  that  is  the  only  holy  or  Mother  Church 
which  ever  was,  or  ever  shall  be. 

38.  All  these  pleasures  then,  and  all  these 
virtues,  I  repeat,  you  nationally  despise. 
You  have,  indeed,  men  among  you  who  do 
not;  by  whose  work,  by  whose  strength, 
by  whose  life,  by  whose  death,  you  live, 
and  never  thank  them.  Your  wealth,  your 
amusement,  your  pride,  would  all  be  alike 
impossible,  but  for  those  whom  you  scorn  or 
forget.  The  policeman,  who  is  walking  up 
and  down  the  black  lane  all  night  to  watch 
the  guilt  you  have  created  there ;  and  may 
have  his  brains  beaten  out,  and  be  maimed 
for  life,  at  any  moment,  and  never  be 
thanked;  the  sailor  wrestling  with  the  sea's 
rage ;  the  quiet  student  poring  over  his  book 


62 


OF    KINGS'   TREASURIES 

or  his  vial ;  the  common  worker,  without 
praise,  and  nearly  without  bread,  fulfilling 
his  task  as  your  horses  drag  your  carts, 
hopeless,  and  spurned  of  all :  these  are  the 
men  by  whom  England  lives  ;  but  they  are 
not  the  nation ;  they  are  only  the  body  and 
nervous  force  of  it,  acting  still  from  old 
habit  in  a  convulsive  perseverance,  while 
the  mind  is  gone.  Our  National  wish  and 
purpose  are  only  to  be  amused ;  our  National 
religion  is  the  performance  of  church  cere- 
monies, and  preaching  of  soporific  truths  (or 
untruths)  to  keep  the  mob  quietly  at  work, 
while  we  amuse  ourselves  ;  and  the  necessity 
for  this  amusement  is  fastening  on  us,  as 
a  feverous  disease  of  parched  throat  and 
wandering  eyes  —  senseless,  dissolute,  merci- 
less. How  literally  that  word  Z>/j--Ease,  the 
Negation  and  possibility  of  Ease,  expresses 
the  entire  moral  state  of  our  English  Industry 
and  its  Amusements ! 

39.  When  men  are  rightly  occupied,  their 
amusement  grows  out  of  their  work,  as  the 
colour-petals  out  of  a  fruitful  flower;  — 
when  they  are  faithfully  helpful  and  compas- 
sionate, all  their  emotions  become  steady, 
deep,  perpetual,  and  vivifying  to  the  soul  as 
the  natural  pulse  to  the  body.  But  now, 
having  no  true  business,  we  pour  our  whole 
masculine  energy  into  the  false  business  of 


63 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

money-making ;  and  having  no  tnie  emotion, 
we  must  have  false  emotions  dressed  up  for 
us  to  play  with,  not  innocently,  as  children 
with  dolls,  but  guiltily  and  darkly,  as  the 
idolatrous  Jews  with  their  pictures  on  cavern 
walls,  which  men  had  to  dig  to  detect.  The 
justice  we  do  not  execute,  we  mimic  in  the 
novel  and  on  the  stage;  for  the  beauty 
we  destroy  in  nature,  we  substitute  the 
metamorphosis  of  the  pantomime,  and  ( the 
human  nature  of  us  imperatively  requiring 
awe  and  sorrow  of  some  kind )  for  the  noble 
grief  we  should  have  borne  with  our  fellows, 
and  the  pure  tears  we  should  have  wept  with 
them,  we  gloat  over  the  pathos  of  the  police 
court,  and  gather  the  night -dew  of  the  grave. 
40.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  true 
significance  of  these  things;  the  facts  are 
frightful  enough;  —  the  measure  of  national 
fault  involved  in  them  is  perhaps  not  as 
great  as  it  would  at  first  seem.  We  permit, 
or  cause,  thousands  of  deaths  daily,  but  we 
mean  no  harm;  we  set  fire  to  houses,  and 
ravage  peasants'  fields,  yet  we  should  be 
sorry  to  find  we  had  injured  anybody.  We 
are  still  kind  at  heart ;  still  capable  of  virtue, 
but  only  as  children  are.  Chalmers,  at  the 
end  of  his  long  life,  having  had  much  power 
with  the  public,  being  plagued  in  some 
serious   matter  by   a  reference   to  "public 


64 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

opinion, "  uttered  the  impatient  exclamation, 
"  The  public  is  just  a  great  baby !  "  And  the 
reason  that  I  have  allowed  all  these  graver 
subjects  of  thought  to  mix  themselves  up 
with  an  inquiry  into  methods  of  reading,  is 
that,  the  more  I  see  of  our  national  faults  or 
miseries,  the  more  they  resolve  themselves 
into  conditions  of  childish  illiterateness  and 
want  of  education  in  the  most  ordinary 
habits  of  thought.  It  is,  I  repeat,  not  vice, 
not  selfishness,  not  dulness  of  brain,  which 
we  have  to  lament ;  but  an  unreachable 
schoolboy's  recklessness,  only  differing  from 
the  true  schoolboy's  in  its  incapacity  of 
being  helped,  because  it  acknowledges  no 
master. 

41.  There  is  a  curious  type  of  us  given 
in  one  of  the  lovely,  neglected  works  of  the 
last  of  our  great  painters.  It  is  a  drawing 
of  Kirkby  Lonsdale  churchyard,  and  of  its 
brook,  and  valley,  and  hills,  and  folded 
morning  sky  beyond.  And  unmindful  alike 
of  these,  and  of  the  dead  who  have  left  " 
these  for  other  valleys  and  for  other  skies,  a 
group  of  schoolboys  have  piled  their  little 
books  upon  a  grave,  to  strike  them  off  with 
stones.  So,  also,  we  play  with  the  words  of 
the  dead  that  would  teach  us,  and  strike 
them  far  from  us  with  our  bitter,  reckless 
will;  little  thinking  that  those  leaves  which 


6s 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

the  wind  scatters  had  been  piled,  not  only 
upon  a  gravestone,  but  upon  the  seal  of  an 
enchanted  vault  —  nay,  the  gate  of  a  great 
city  of  sleeping  kings,  who  would  awake  for 
us,  and  walk  with  us,  if  we  knew  but  how  to 
call  them  by  their  names.  How  often,  even 
if  we  lift  the  marble  entrance  gate,  do  we 
but  wander  among  those  old  kings  in  their 
repose,  and  finger  the  robes  they  lie  in,  and 
stir  the  crowns  on  their  foreheads,  and  still 
they  are  silent  to  us,  and  seem  but  a  dusty 
imagery ;  because  we  know  not  the  incanta- 
tion of  the  heart  that  would  wake  them;  — 
which,  if  they  once  heard,  they  would  start 
up  to  meet  us  in  their  power  of  long  ago, 
narrowly  to  look  upon  us,  and  consider  us; 
and,  as  the  fallen  kings  of  Hades  meet  the 
newly  fallen,  saying,  "  Art  thou  also  become 
weak  as  we  —  art  thou  also  become  one 
of  us  ? "  so  would  these  kings,  with  their 
undimmed,  unshaken  diadems,  meet  us, 
saying,  "Art  thou  also  become  pure  and 
mighty  of  heart  as  we  ?  art  thou  also  become 
one  of  us  ? " 

42.  Mighty  of  heart,  mighty  of  mind  — 
"  magnanimous  '*  —  to  be  this,  is  indeed  to 
be  great  in  life ;  to  become  this  increasingly, 
is,  indeed,  to  "advance  in  life,"  —  in  life 
itself — not  in  the  trappings  of  it.  My 
friends,  do  you  remember  that  old  Scythian 


66 


OF    KINGS'    TREASURIES 

custom,  when  the  head  of  a  house  died  ? 
How  he  was  dressed  in  his  finest  dress,  and 
set  in  his  chariot,  and  carried  about  to  his 
friends'  houses;  and  each  of  them  placed 
him  at  his  table's  head,  and  all  feasted  in 
his  presence  ?  Suppose  it  were  offered  to 
you  in  plain  words,  as  it  is  offered  to  you  in 
dire  facts,  that  you  should  gain  this  Scythian 
honour,  gradually,  while  you  yet  thought 
yourself  alive.  Suppose  the  offer  were  this  : 
You  shall  die  slowly ;  your  blood  shall  daily 
grow  cold,  your  flesh  petrify,  your  heart  beat 
at  last  only  as  a  rusted  group  of  iron  valves. 
Your  life  shall  fade  from  you,  and  sink 
through  the  earth  into  the  ice  of  Caina; 
but,  day  by  day,  your  body  shall  be  dressed 
more  gaily,  and  set  in  higher  chariots,  and 
have  more  orders  on  its  breast  —  crowns  on 
its  head,  if  you  will.  Men  shall  bow  before 
it,  stare  and  shout  round  it,  crowd  after  it  up 
and  down  the  streets  ;  build  palaces  for  it, 
feast  with  it  at  their  tables'  heads  all  the 
night  long ;  your  soul  shall  stay  enough 
within  it  to  know  what  they  do,  and  feel  the 
weight  of  the  golden  dress  on  its  shoulders, 
and  the  furrow  of  the  crown -edge  on  the 
skull; — no  more.  Would  you  take  the 
offer,  verbally  made  by  the  death-angel } 
Would  the  meanest  among  us  take  it,  think 
you  ."*     Yet  practically  and  verily  we  grasp 


67 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

at  it,  every  one  of  us,  in  a  measure  ;  many  of 
us  grasp  at  it  in  its  fulness  of  horror.  Every 
man  accepts  it,  who  desires  to  advance  in 
life  without  knowing  what  life  is ;  who  means 
only  that  he  is  to  get  more  horses,  and  more 
footmen,  and  more  fortune,  and  more  public 
honour,  and  —  not  more  personal  soul.  He 
only  is  advancing  in  life,  whose  heart  is 
getting  softer,  whose  blood  warmer,  whose 
brain  quicker,  whose  spirit  is  entering  into 
Living  I  peace.  And  the  men  who  have  this 
life  in  them  are  the  true  lords  or  kings  of 
the  earth  —  they,  and  they  only.  All  other 
kingships,  so  far  as  they  are  true,  are  only 
the  practical  issue  and  expression  of  theirs  ; 
if  less  than  this,  they  are  either  dramatic 
royalties,  —  costly  shows,  set  off,  indeed,  with 
real  jewels  instead  of  tinsel  —  but  still  only 
the  toys  of  nations;  or  else,  they  are  no 
royalties  at  all,  but  tyrannies,  or  the  mere 
active  and  practical  issue  of  national  folly  ; 
for  which  reason  I  have  said  of  them  else- 
where, "Visible  governments  are  the  toys 
of  some  nations,  the  diseases  of  others,  the 
harness  of  some,  the  burdens  of  more." 

43.     But  I  have  no  words  for  the  wonder 
with  which  I  hear  Kinghood  still  spoken  of, 

I   "r6  5^  <f)p6v7jfia  toO  Trj/eiJ/xaros    fw^    Kal 
elpifivrj." 


68 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

even  among  thoughtful  men,  as  if  governed 
nations  were  a  personal  property,  and  might 
be  bought  and  sold,  or  otherwise  acquired, 
as  sheep,  of  whose  flesh  their  king  was  to 
feed,  and  whose  fleece  he  was  to  gather ;  as 
if  Achilles'  indignant  epithet  of  base  kings, 
"  people -eating,"  were  the  constant  and  proper 
title  of  all  monarchs ;  and  enlargement  of  a 
king's  dominion  meant  the  same  thing  as  the 
increase  of  a  private  man's  estate!  Kings 
who  think  so,  however  powerful,  can  no 
more  be  the  true  kings  of  the  nation  than 
gadflies  are  the  kings  of  a  horse ;  they  suck 
it,  and  may  drive  it  wild,  but  do  not  guide  it. 
They,  and  their  courts,  and  their  armies  are, 
if  one  could  see  clearly,  only  a  large  species 
of  marsh  mosquito,  with  bayonet  proboscis 
and  melodious,  band-mastered  trumpeting, 
in  the  summer  air;  the  twilight  being,  per- 
haps, sometimes  fairer,  but  hardly  more 
wholesome,  for  its  glittering  mists  of  midge 
companies.  The  true  kings,  meanwhile,  rule 
quietly,  if  at  all,  and  hate  ruling;  too  many 
of  them  make  "  il  gran  rifiuto  "  ;  and  if  they 
do  not,  the  mob,  as  soon  as  they  are  likely 
to  become  useful  to  it,  is  pretty  sure  to  make 
its   "  gran  rifiuto  "  of  them. 

44.  Yet  the  visible  king  may  also  be  a 
true  one,  some  day,  if  ever  day  comes  when 
he  will  estimate  his  dominion  by  ih&  force 


69 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

of  it,  —  not  the  geographical  boundaries.  It 
matters  very  little  whether  Trent  cuts  you  a 
cantel  out  here,  or  Rhine  rounds  you  a  castle 
less  there.  But  it  does  matter  to  you,  king 
of  men,  whether  you  can  verily  say  to  this 
man  "Go,"  and  he  goeth;  and  to  another, 
"  Come,"  and  he  cometh.  Whether  you  can 
turn  your  people,  as  you  can  Trent  —  and 
where  it  is  that  you  bid  them  come,  and 
where  go.  It  matters  to  you,  king  of  men, 
whether  your  people  hate  you,  and  die  by 
you,  or  love  you,  and  live  by  you.  You  may 
measure  your  dominion  by  multitudes,  better 
than  by  miles;  and  count  degrees  of  love- 
latitude,  not  from,  but  to,  a  wonderfully 
warm  and  infinite  equator. 

45.  Measure  !  —  nay,  you  cannot  measure. 
Who  shall  measure  the  difference  between 
the  power  of  those  who  "  do  and  teach,"  and 
who  are  greatest,  in  the  kingdoms  of  earth, 
as  of  heaven —  and  the  power  of  those  who 
undo,  and  consume  —  whose  power,  at  the 
fullest,  is  only  the  power  of  the  moth  and 
the  rust  ?  Strange  1  to  think  how  the  Moth- 
kings  lay  up  treasures  for  the  moth ;  and  the 
Rust-kings,  who  are  to  their  people's  strength 
as  rust  to  armour,  lay  up  treasures  for  the 
rust;  and  the  Robber-kings,  treasures  for 
the  robber;  but  how  few  kings  have  ever 
laid  up  treasures  that  needed  no  guarding  — 


70 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

treasures  of  which,  the  more  thieves  there 
were,  the  better !  Broidered  robe,  only  to  be 
rent ;  helm  and  sword,  only  to  be  dimmed ; 
jewel  and  gold,  only  to  be  scattered ;  —  there 
have  been  three  kinds  of  kings  who  have 
gathered  these.  Suppose  there  ever  should 
arise  a  Fourth  order  of  kings,  who  had  read, 
in  some  obscure  writing  of  long  ago,  that 
there  was  a  Fourth  kind  of  treasure,  which 
the  jewel  and  gold  could  not  equal,  neither 
should  it  be  valued  with  pure  gold.  A  web 
made  fair  in  the  weaving,  by  Athena's  shuttle ; 
an  armour,  forged  in  divine  fire  by  Vulcanian 
force;  a  gold  to  be  mined  in  the  very  sun's 
red  heart,  where  he  sets  over  the  Delphian 
cliffs  ;  —  deep  -pictured  tissue ;  —  impenetra- 
ble armour; — potable  gold;  —  the  three 
great  Angels  of  Conduct,  Toil,  and  Thought, 
still  calling  to  us,  and  waiting  at  the  posts 
of  our  doors,  to  lead  us,  with  their  winged 
power,  and  guide  us,  with  their  unerring 
eyes,  by  the  path  which  no  fowl  knoweth, 
and  which  the  vulture's  eye  has  not  seen  I 
Suppose  kings  should  ever  arise,  who  heard 
and  believed  this  word,  and  at  last  gathered 
and  brought  forth  treasures  of  —  Wisdom  — 
for  their  people  ? 

46.  Think  what  an  amazing  business 
that  would  be !  How  inconceivable,  in  the 
state  of  our  present  national  wisdom  1     That 


71 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

we  should  bring  up  our  peasants  to  a 
book  exercise  instead  of  a  bayonet  exer- 
cise!—  organise,  drill,  maintain  with  pay, 
and  good  generalship,  armies  of  thinkers, 
instead  of  armies  of  stabbers  !  —  find  national 
amusement  in  reading-rooms  as  well  as  rifle 
grounds  ;  give  prizes  for  a  fair  shot  at  a  fact, 
as  well  as  for  a  leaden  splash  on  a  target. 
What  an  absurd  idea  it  seems,  put  fairly  in 
words,  that  the  wealth  of  the  capitalists  of 
civilised  nations  should  ever  come  to  support 
literature  instead  of  war ! 

47.  Have  yet  patience  with  me,  while  I 
read  you  a  single  sentence  out  of  the  only 
book,  properly  to  be  called  a  book,  that  I 
have  yet  written  myself,  the  one  that  will 
stand,  (if  anything  stand,)  surest  and  longest 
of  all  work  of  mine  :  — 

"  It  is  one  very  awful  form  of  the  operation  of  wealth 
in  Europe  that  it  is  entirely  capitalists'  wealth  which 
supports  unjust  wars.  Just  wars  do  not  need  so  much 
money  to  support  them  ;  for  most  of  the  men  who  wage 
such,  wage  them  gratis ;  but  for  an  unjust  war,  men's 
bodies  and  souls  have  both  to  be  bought ;  and  ihe  best 
tools  of  war  for  them  besides,  which  makes  such  war 
costly  to  the  maximum  ;  not  to  speak  of  the  cost  of  base 
fear,  and  angry  suspicion,  between  nations  which  have 
not  grace  nor  honesty  enough  in  all  their  multitudes  to 
buy  an  hour's  peace  of  mind  with  ;  as,  at  present, 
France  and  England,  purchasing  of  each  other  ten 
millions  sterling  worth  of  consternation,  annually  (a 
remarkably  light  crop,  half  thorns  and  half   aspen 


72 


OF   KINGS'    TREASURIES 

leaves,  sown,  reaped  and  granaried  by  the  'science'  of 
the  modern  political  economist,  teaching  covetousness 
instead  of  truth).  And,  all  unjust  war  being  support- 
able, if  not  by  pillage  of  the  enemy,  only  by  loans 
from  capitalists,  these  loans  are  repaid  by  subsequent 
taxation  of  the  people,  who  appear  to  have  no  will  in 
the  matter,  the  capitalists*  will  being  the  primary  root 
of  the  war ;  but  its  real  root  is  the  covetousness  of  the 
whole  nation,  rendering  it  incapable  of  faith,  frank- 
ness, or  justice,  and  bringing  about,  therefore,  in  due 
time,  his  own  separate  loss  and  punishment  to  each 
person." 

48.  France  and  England  literally,  observe, 
buy  panic  of  each  other ;  they  pay,  each  of 
them,  for  ten  thousand-thousand  pounds'- 
worth  of  terror,  a  year.  Now  suppose, 
instead  of  buying  these  ten  millions'  worth 
of  panic  annually,  they  made  up  their  minds 
to  be  at  peace  with  each  other,  and  buy  ten 
millions'  worth  of  knowledge  annually;  and 
that  each  nation  spent  its  ten  thousand- 
thousand  pounds  a  year  in  founding  royal 
libraries,  royal  art  galleries,  royal  museums, 
royal  gardens,  and  places  of  rest.  Might  it 
not  be  better  somewhat  for  both  French  and 
English .? 

49.  It  will  be  long,  yet,  before  that  comes 
to  pass.  Nevertheless,  I  hope  it  will  not  be 
long  before  royal  or  national  libraries  will 
be  founded  in  every  considerable  city,  with 
a  royal  series  of  books  in  them ;  the  same 
series  in  every  one  of  them,  chosen  books, 


73 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

the  best  in  every  kind,  prepared  for  that 
national  series  in  the  most  perfect  way 
possible ;  their  text  printed  all  on  leaves  of 
equal  size,  broad  of  margin,  and  divided 
into  pleasant  volumes,  light  in  the  hand, 
beautiful,  and  strong,  and  thorough  as  exam- 
ples of  binders'  work ;  and  that  these  great 
libraries  will  be  accessible  to  all  clean  and 
orderly  persons  at  all  times  of  the  day  and 
evening;  strict  law  being  enforced  for  this 
cleanliness  and  quietness. 

50.  I  could  shape  for  you  other  plans,  for 
art  galleries,  and  for  natural  history  galleries, 
and  for  many  precious  —  many,  it  seems  to 
me,  needful  —  things ;  but  this  book  plan  is 
the  easiest  and  needfullest,  and  would  prove 
a  considerable  tonic  to  what  we  call  our 
British  Constitution,  which  has  fallen  drop- 
sical of  late,  and  has  an  evil  thirst,  and  evil 
hunger,  and  wants  healthier  feeding.  You 
have  got  its  corn  laws  repealed  for  it ;  try 
if  you  cannot  get  corn  laws  established  for 
it,  dealing  in  a  better  bread;  —  bread  made 
of  that  old  enchanted  Arabian  grain,  the 
Sesame,  which  opens  doors;  —  doors,  not  of 
robbers',  but  of  Kings'  Treasuries. 


74 


NOTE  TO  §  30 

Respecting  the  increase  of  rent  by  the 
deaths  of  the  poor,  for  evidence  of  which, 
see  the  preface  to  the  Medical  Officer's 
report  to  the  Privy  Council,  just  published, 
there  are  suggestions  in  its  preface  which 
will  make  some  stir  among  us,  I  fancy, 
respecting  which  let  me  note  these  points 
following :  — 

There  are  two  theories  on  the  subject  of 
land  now  abroad,  and  in  contention;  both 
false. 

The  first  is  that,  by  Heavenly  law,  there 
have  always  existed,  and  must  continue  to 
exist,  a  certain  number  of  hereditarily  sacred 
persons  to  whom  the  earth,  air,  and  water 
of  the  world  belong,  as  personal  property ;  of 
which  earth,  air,  and  water,  these  persons 
may,  at  their  pleasure,  permit,  or  forbid,  the 
rest  of  the  human  race  to  eat,  to  breathe,  or 
to  drink.  This  theory  is  not  for  many  years 
longer  tenable.  The  adverse  theory  is  that* 
a  division  of  the  land  of  the  world  among 
the  mob  of  the  world  would  immediately 
elevate  the  said  mob  into  sacred  personages  ; 
that  houses  would  then  build  themselves, 
and  corn  grow  of  itself ;  and  that  everybody 


75 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

would  be  able  to  live,  without  doing  any 
work  for  his  living.  This  theory  would  also 
be  found  highly  untenable  in  practice. 

It  will,  however,  require  some  rough  exper- 
iments and  rougher  catastrophes,  before  the 
generality  of  persons  will  be  convinced  that 
no  law  concerning  anything  —  least  of  all  con  - 
cerning  land,  for  either  holding  or  dividing 
it,  or  renting  it  high,  or  renting  it  low  — 
would  be  of  the  smallest  ultimate  use  to  the 
people,  so  long  as  the  general  contest  for 
life,  and  for  the  means  of  life,  remains  one 
of  mere  brutal  competition.  That  contest, 
in  an  unprincipled  nation,  will  take  one 
deadly  form  or  another,  whatever  laws  you 
make  against  it.  For  instance,  it  would  be 
an  entirely  wholesome  law  for  England,  if 
it  could  be  carried,  that  maximum  limits 
should  be  assigned  to  incomes  according  to 
classes ;  and  that  every  nobleman's  income 
should  be  paid  to  him  as  a  fixed  salary  or 
pension  by  the  nation ;  and  not  squeezed  by 
him  in  variable  sums,  at  discretion,  out  of 
the  tenants  of  his  land.  But  if  you  could 
get  such  a  law  passed  to-morrow,  and  if, 
which  w^ould  be  farther  necessary,  you  could 
fix  the  value  of  the  assigned  incomes  by 
making  a  given  weight  of  pure  bread  for  a 
given  sum,  a  twelve-month  would  not  pass 
before   another   currency   would  have  been 


76 


OF    KINGS'   TREASURIES 

tacitly  established,  and  the  power  of  accumu- 
lated wealth  would  have  re-asserted  itself  in 
some  other  article,  or  some  other  imaginary 
sign.  There  is  only  one  cure  for  public 
distress  —  and  that  is  public  education, 
directed  to  make  men  thoughtful,  merciful, 
and  just.  There  are,  indeed,  many  laws 
conceivable  which  would  gradually  better 
and  strengthen  the  national  temper ;  but,  for 
the  most  part,  they  are  such  as  the  national 
temper  must  be  much  bettered  before  it 
would  bear.  A  nation  in  its  youth  may  be 
helped  by  laws,  as  a  weak  child  by  back- 
boards, but  when  it  is  old  it  cannot  that  way 
strengthen  its  crooked  spine. 

And  besides  ;  the  problem  of  land,  at  its 
worst,  is  a  bye  one ;  distribute  the  earth 
as  you  will,  the  principal  question  remains 
inexorable,  —  Who  is  to  dig  it  ?  Which  of 
us,  in  brief  word,  is  to  do  the  hard  and  dirty 
work  for  the  rest  —  and  for  what  pay  ?  Who 
is  to  do  the  pleasant  and  clean  work,  and  for 
what  pay  ?  Who  is  to  do  no  work,  and 
for  what  pay }  And  there  are  curious  moral 
and  religious  questions  connected  with  these. 
How  far  is  it  lawful  to  suck  a  portion  of  the 
soul  out  of  a  great  many  persons,  in  order 
to  put  the  abstracted  psychical  quantities 
together  and  make  one  very  beautiful  or 
ideal  soul.^     If  we  had  to  deal  with  mere 


77 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

blood  instead  of  spirit,  (and  the  thing  might 
literally  be  done  —  as  it  has  been  done  with 
infants  before  now)  —  so  that  it  were  possible 
by  taking  a  certain  quantity  of  blood  from 
the  arms  of  a  given  number  of  the  mob,  and 
putting  it  all  into  one  person,  to  make  a  more 
azure-blooded  gentleman  of  him,  the  thing 
would  of  course  be  managed;  but  secretly, 
I  should  conceive.  But  now,  because  it  is 
brain  and  soul  that  we  abstract,  not  visible 
blood,  it  can  be  done  quite  openly,  and  we 
live,  we  gentlemen,  on  delicatest  prey,  after 
the  manner  of  weasels ;  that  is  to  say,  we 
keep  a  certain  number  of  clowns  digging  and 
ditching,  and  generally  stupified,  in  order 
that  we,  being  fed  gratis,  may  have  all  the 
thinking  and  feeling  to  ourselves.  Yet 
there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  this.  A 
highly-bred  and  trained  English,  French, 
Austrian,  or  Italian  gentleman  (much  more 
a  lady),  is  a  great  production,  —  a  better 
production  than  most  statues  ;  being  beauti- 
fully coloured  as  well  as  shaped,  and  plus  all 
the  brains;  a  glorious  thing  to  look  at,  a 
wonderful  thing  to  talk  to ;  and  you  cannot 
have  it,  any  more  than  a  pyramid  or  a 
church,  but  by  sacrifice  of  much  contributed 
life.  And  it  is,  perhaps,  better  to  build  a 
beautiful  human  creature  than  a  beautiful 
dome   or  steeple  —  and  more  delightful  to 


78 


OF  kings'  treasuries 

look  up  reverently  to  a  creature  far  above 
us,  than  to  a  wall ;  only  the  beautiful  human 
creature  will  have  some  duties  to  do  in 
return  — duties  of  living  belfry  and  rampart 
—  of  which  presently. 


79 


LECTURE  II  — LILIES 
OF  queens'  gardens 

"  Be  thou  glad,  oh  thirsting  Desert ;  let  the  desert  be 
made  cheerful,  and  bloom  as  the  lily  ;  and  the  barren 
places  of  Jordan  shall  run  wild  with  wood."  —  Isaiah 
XXXV.  I.  (Septuagint.) 

IT  will,  perhaps,  be  well,  as  this  Lecture  is 
the  sequel  of  one  previously  given,  that 
I  should  shortly  state  to  you  my  general 
intention  in  both.  The  questions  specially 
proposed  to  you  in  the  first,  namely,  How 
and  What  to  Read,  rose  out  of  a  far  deeper 
one,  which  it  was  my  endeavour  to  make 
you  propose  earnestly  to  yourselves,  namely. 
Why  to  Read.  I  want  you  to  feel,  with  me, 
that  whatever  advantage  we  possess  in  the 
present  day  in  the  diffusion  of  education  and 
of  literature,  can  only  be  rightly  used  by  any 
of  us  when  we  have  apprehended  clearly 
what  education  is  to  lead  to,  and  literature 
to  teach.  I  wish  you  to  see  that  both 
well-directed  moral  training  and  w^ell-chosen 
reading  lead  to  the  possession  of  a  power 
over  the  ill-guided  and  illiterate,  which  is, 
according  to  the  measure  of  it,  in  the  truest 
sense,  kingly ;  conferring  indeed  the  purest 
kingship  that  can  exist  among  men :  too 
many  other  kingships  (  however  distinguished 


80 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

by  visible  insignia  or  material  power )  being 
either  spectral,  or  tyrannous  ;  —  spectral  — 
that  is  to  say,  aspects  and  shadows  only  of 
royalty,  hollow  as  death,  and  which  only  the 
"  likeness  of  a  kingly  crown  have  on ; "  or 
else  tyrannous  —  that  is  to  say,  substituting 
their  own  will  for  the  law  of  justice  and  love 
by  which  all  true  kings  rule. 

52.  There  is,  then,  I  repeat  —  and  as  I 
want  to  leave  this  idea  with  you,  I  begin 
with  it,  and  shall  end  with  it  —  only  one  pure 
kind  of  kingship;  an  inevitable  and  eternal 
kind,  crowned  or  not :  the  kingship,  namely, 
which  consists  in  a  stronger  moral  state,  and 
a  truer  thoughtful  state,  than  that  of  others ; 
enabling  you,  therefore,  to  guide,  or  to  raise 
them.  Observe  that  word  "  State  "  ;  we  have 
got  into  a  loose  way  of  using  it.  It  means 
literally  the  standing  and  stability  of  a  thing  ; 
and  you  have  the  full  force  of  it  in  the 
derived  word  "statue"  —  '*  the  immovable 
thing."  A  king's  majesty  or  "state,"  then, 
and  the  right  of  his  kingdom  to  be  called  a 
state,  depends  on  the  movelessness  of  both : 
—  without  tremor,  without  quiver  of  balance  ; 
established  and  enthroned  upon  a  foundation 
of  eternal  law  which  nothing  can  alter,  nor 
overthrow. 

53.  Believing  that  all  literature  and  all 
education  are  only  useful  so  far  as  they  tend 


81 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

to  confirm  this  calm,  beneficent,  and  therefore 
kingly,  power,  —  first,  over  ourselves,  and, 
through  ourselves,  over  all  around  us, —  I  am 
now  going  to  ask  you  to  consider  with  me, 
farther,  what  special  portion  or  kind  of  this 
royal  authority,  arising  out  of  noble  educa- 
tion, may  rightly  be  possessed  by  women  ; 
and  how  far  they  also  are  called  to  a  true 
queenly  power,  —  not  in  their  households 
merely,  but  over  all  within  their  sphere. 
And  in  what  sense,  if  they  rightly  understood 
and  exercised  this  royal  or  gracious  influence, 
the  order  and  beauty  induced  by  such 
benignant  power  would  justify  us  in  speak- 
ing of  the  territories  over  which  each  of 
them  reigned,  as  "  Queens'  Gardens.  " 

54.  And  here,  in  the  very  outset,  we  are 
met  by  a  far  deeper  question,  which  — 
strange  though  this  may  seem  —  remains 
among  many  of  us  yet  quite  undecided,  in 
spite  of  its  infinite  importance. 

We  cannot  determine  what  the  queenly 
power  of  women  should  be,  until  we  are 
agreed  what  their  ordinary  power  should 
be.  We  cannot  consider  how  education 
may  fit  them  for  any  widely  extending  duty, 
until  we  are  agreed  what  is  their  true  con- 
stant duty.  And  there  never  was  a  time 
when  wilder  words  were  spoken,  or  more 
vain  imagination  permitted,  respecting  this 


82 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

question —  quite  vital  to  all  social  happiness. 
The  relations  of  the  womanly  to  the  manly 
nature,  their  different  capacities  of  intellect 
or  of  virtue,  seem  never  to  have  been  yet 
estimated  with  entire  consent.  We  hear  of 
the  "  mission  "  and  of  the  "  rights  "  of 
Woman,  as  if  these  could  ever  be  separate 
from  the  mission  and  the  rights  of  Man  ;  — 
as  if  she  and  her  lord  were  creatures  of  inde- 
pendent kind,  and  of  irreconcilable  claim. 
This,  at  least,  is  wrong.     And  not  less  wrong 

—  perhaps  even  more  foolishly  wrong  (for  I 
will  anticipate  thus  far  what  I  hope  to  prove) 

—  is  the  idea  that  woman  is  only  the  shadow 
and  attendant  image  of  her  lord,  owing  him 
a  thoughtless  and  servile  obedience,  and 
supported  altogether  in  her  weakness,  by 
the  pre-eminence  of  his  fortitude. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  most  foolish  of  all 
errors  respecting  her  who  was  made  to  be 
the  helpmate  of  man.  As  if  he  could  be 
helped  effectively  by  a  shadow,  or  worthily 
by  a  slave ! 

55.  Let  us  try,  then,  whether  w^e  cannot 
get  at  some  clear  and  harmonious  idea  (it 
must  be  harmonious  if  it  is  true)  of  what 
womanly  mind  and  virtue  are  in  power  and 
office,  with  respect  to  man's ;  and  how  their 
relations,  rightly  accepted,  aid,  and  increase, 
the  vigour,  and  honour,  and  authority  of  both. 


83 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

And  now  I  must  repeat  one  thing  I  said 
in  the  last  lecture :  namely,  that  the  first  use 
of  education  was  to  enable  us  to  consult 
with  the  wisest  and  the  greatest  men  on  all 
points  of  earnest  difficulty.  That  to  use 
books  rightly,  was  to  go  to  them  for  help  : 
to  appeal  to  them  when  our  own  knowledge 
and  power  of  thought  failed:  to  be  led  by 
them  into  wider  sight,  —  purer  conception,  — 
than  our  own,  and  receive  from  them  the 
united  sentence  of  the  judges  and  councils 
of  ail  time,  against  our  solitary  and  unstable 
opinion. 

Let  us  do  this  now.  Let  us  see  whether 
the  greatest,  the  wisest,  the  purest-hearted 
of  all  ages  are  agreed  in  any  wise  on  this 
point :  let  us  hear  the  testimony  they  have 
left  respecting  what  they  held  to  be  the  true 
dignity  of  woman,  and  her  mode  of  help  to 
man. 

56.     And  first  let  us  take  Shakespeare. 

Note  broadly  in  the  outset,  Shakespeare 
has  no  heroes ;  —  he  has  only  heroines. 
There  is  not  one  entirely  heroic  figure  in  all 
his  plays,  except  the  slight  sketch  of  Henry 
the  Fifth,  exaggerated  for  the  purposes  of 
the  stage ;  and  the  still  slighter  Valentine  in 
The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona.  In  his 
laboured  and  perfect  plays  you  have  no 
hero.     Othello  would  have  been  one,  if  his 


84 


OF   QUEENS*    GARDENS 

simplicity  had  not  been  so  great  as  to  leave 
him  the  prey  of  every  base  practice  round 
him ;  but  he  is  the  only  example  even 
approximating  to  the  heroic  type.  Corio- 
lanus — Caesar  —  Antony  stand  in  flawed 
strength,  and  fall  by  their  vanities  ;  —  Hamlet 
is  indolent,  and  drowsily  speculative ;  Romeo 
an  impatient  boy ;  the  Merchant  of  Venice 
languidly  submissive  to  adverse  fortune ; 
Kent,  in  King  Lear,  is  entirely  noble  at 
heart,  but  too  rough  and  unpolished  to  be 
of  true  use  at  the  critical  time,  and  he  sinks 
into  the  office  of  a  servant  only.  Orlando, 
no  less  noble,  is  yet  the  despairing  toy  of 
chance,  followed,  comforted,  saved,  by  Rosa- 
lind. Whereas  there  is  hardly  a  play  that 
has  not  a  perfect  woman  in  it,  steadfast  in 
grave  hope,  and  errorless  purpose  ;  Cordelia, 
Desdemona,  Isabella,  Hermione,  Imogen, 
Queen  Catherine,  Perdita,  Sylvia,  Viola, 
Rosalind,  Helena,  and  last,  and  perhaps 
loveliest,  Virgilia,  are  all  faultless  ;  conceived 
in  the  highest  heroic  type  of  humanity. 

57.     Then  observe,  secondly, 

The  catastrophe  of  every  play  is  caused 
always  by  the  folly  or  fault  of  a  man ;  the 
redemption,  if  there  be  any,  is  by  the  wisdom 
and  virtue  of  a  woman,  and,  failing  that, 
there  is  none.  The  catastrophe  of  King 
Lear  is  owing  to  his  own  want  of  judgment, 


8s 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

his  impatient  vanity,  his  misunderstanding 
of  his  children ;  the  virtue  of  his  one  true 
daughter  would  have  saved  him  from  all 
the  injuries  of  the  others,  unless  he  had  cast 
her  away  from  him  ;  as  it  is,  she  all  but 
saves  him. 

Of  Othello  I  need  not  trace  the  tale ;  nor 
the  one  weakness  of  his  so  mighty  love ; 
nor  the  inferiority  of  his  perceptive  intellect 
to  that  even  of  the  second  woman  character 
in  the  play,  the  Emilia  who  dies  in  wild 
testimony  against  his  error  :  — 

**  Oh,  murderous  coxcomb  !  what  should  such  a  fool 
Do  with  so  good  a  wife?  " 

In  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  wise  and  brave 
stratagem  of  the  wife  is  brought  to  ruinous 
issue  by  the  reckless  impatience  of  her 
husband.  In  The  Winter's  Tale,  and  in 
Cymbeline,  the  happiness  and  existence  of 
two  princely  households,  lost  through  long 
years,  and  imperilled  to  the  death  by  the 
folly  and  obstinacy  of  the  husbands,  are 
redeemed  at  last  by  the  queenly  patience 
and  wisdom  of  the  wives.  In  Measure  for 
Measure,  the  foul  injustice  of  the  judge, 
and  the  foul  cowardice  of  the  brother,  are 
opposed  to  the  victorious  truth  and  adaman- 
tine purity  of  a  woman.  In  Coriolanus,  the 
mother's  counsel,  acted  upon  in  time,  would 


86 


OF  QUEENS'    GARDENS 

have  saved  her  son  from  all  evil;  his 
momentary  forgetfulness  of  it  is  his  ruin ; 
her  prayer,  at  last,  granted,  saves  him  —  not, 
indeed,  from  death,  but  from  the^curse  of 
living  as  the  destroyer  of  his  country. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  Julia,  constant 
against  the  fickleness  of  a  lover  who  is  a 
mere  wicked  child  ?  —  of  Helena,  against  the 
petulance  and  insult  of  a  careless  youth  ?  — 
of  the  patience  of  Hero,  the  passion  of 
Beatrice,  and  the  calmly  devoted  wisdom 
of  the  '*  unlessoned  girl,"  who  appears  among 
the  helplessness,  the  blindness,  and  the  vin- 
dictive passions  of  men,  as  a  gentle  angel, 
bringing  courage  and  safety  by  her  presence, 
and  defeating  the  worst  malignities  of  crime 
by  what  women  are  fancied  most  to  fail  in, — 
precision  and  accuracy  of  thought. 

58.  Observe,  further,  among  all  the  prin- 
cipal figures  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  there  is 
only  one  weak  woman  —  Ophelia;  and  it 
is  because  she  fails  Hamlet  at  the  critical 
moment,  and  is  not,  and  cannot  in  her 
nature  be,  a  guide  to  him  when  he  needs  her 
most,  that  all  the  bitter  catastrophe  follows. 
Finally,  though  there  are  three  wicked 
women  among  the  principal  figures.  Lady 
Macbeth,  Regan,  and  Goneril,  they  are  felt 
at  once  to  be  frightful  exceptions  to  the 
ordinary  laws  of  life ;  fatal  in  their  influence 


87 


SESAME    AND    LILIES 

also,  in  proportion  to  the  power  for  good 
which  they  have  abandoned. 

Such,  in  broad  light,  is  Shakespeare's 
testimony  to  the  position  and  character  of 
women  in  human  life.  He  represents  them 
as  infallibly  faithful  and  wise  counsellors, 
—  incorruptibly  just  and  pure  examples, — 
strong  always  to  sanctify,  even  when  they 
cannot  save. 

59.  Not  as  in  any  wise  comparable  in 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  man,  —  still  less 
in  his  understanding  of  the  causes  and 
courses  of  fate,  —  but  only  as  the  writer  who 
has  given  us  the  broadest  view  of  the  condi- 
tions and  modes  of  ordinary  thought  in 
modern  society,  I  ask  you  next  to  receive 
the  witness  of  Walter  Scott. 

I  put  aside  his  merely  romantic  prose 
writing  as  of  no  value,  and  though  the 
early  romantic  poetry  is  very  beautiful,  its 
testimony  is  of  no  weight,  other  than  that  of 
a  boy's  ideal.  But  his  true  works,  studied 
from  Scottish  life,  bear  a  true  witness ;  and, 
in  the  whole  range  of  these,  there  are  but 
three  men  who   reach   the   heroic  type  i  — 

I  I  ought,  in  order  to  make  this  assertion  fully  under- 
stood, to  have  noted  the  various  weaknesses  which 
lower  the  ideal  of  other  great  characters  of  men  in  the 
Waverley  novels  —  the  selfishness  and  narrowness  of 
thought  in  Redgauntlet,  the  weak  religious  enthusiasm 


88 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

Dandle  Dinmont,  Rob  Roy,  and  Claver- 
house;  of  these,  one  is  a  border  farmer; 
another  a  freebooter;  the  third  a  soldier  in 
a  bad  cause.  And  these  touch  the  ideal  of 
heroism  only  in  their  courage  and  faith, 
together  with  a  strong,  but  uncultivated,  or 
mistakenly  applied,  intellectual  power ;  while 
his  younger  men  are  the  gentlemanly  play- 
things of  fantastic  fortune,  and  only  by  aid 
(or  accident)  of  that  fortune,  survive,  not 
vanquish,  the  trials  they  involuntarily  sustain. 
Of  any  disciplined,  or  consistent  character, 
earnest  in  a  purpose  wisely  conceived,  or 
dealing  with  forms  of  hostile  evil,  definitely 
challenged  and  resolutely  subdued,  there  is 
no  trace  in  his  conceptions  of  young  men. 
Whereas  in  his  imaginations  of  women, — 
in  the  characters  of  Ellen  Douglas,  of 
Flora  Maclvor,  Rose  Bradwardine,  Catherine 
Seyton,  Diana  Vernon,  Lilias  Redgauntlet, 
Alice  Bridgenorth,  Alice  Lee,  and  Jeanie 
Deans,  —  with  endless  varieties  of  grace, 
tenderness,  and  intellectual  power,  we  find 
in  all  a  quite  infallible  sense  of  dignity  and 

in  Edward  Glendinning,  and  the  like ;  and  I  ought  to 
have  noticed  that  there  are  several  quite  perfect  char- 
acters sketched  sometimes  in  the  backgrounds  ;  three 
—  let  us  acpept  joyously  this  courtesy  to  England  and 
her  soldiers  —  are  English  officers:  Colonel  Gardiner, 
Colonel  Talbot,  and  Colonel  Mannering. 


89 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

justice;  a  fearless,  instant,  and  untiring 
self-sacrifice,  to  even  the  appearance  of  duty, 
much  more  to  its  real  claims ;  and,  finally,  a 
patient  wisdom  of  deeply  restrained  affec- 
tion, which  does  infinitely  more  than  pro- 
tect its  objects  from  a  momentary  error;  it 
gradually  forms,  animates,  and  exalts  the 
characters  of  the  unworthy  lovers,  until,  at 
the  close  of  the  tale,  we  are  just  able,  and 
no  more,  to  take  patience  in  hearing  of  their 
unmerited  success. 

So  that,  in  all  cases,  with  Scott  as  with 
Shakespeare,  it  is  the  woman  who  watches 
over,  teaches,  and  guides  the  youth ;  it  is 
never,  by  any  chance,  the  youth  who  watches 
over,  or  educates,  his  mistress. 

60.  Next,  take,  though  more  briefly, 
graver  testimony  —  that  of  the  great  Ital- 
ians and  Greeks.  You  know  well  the  plan 
of  Dante's  great  poem  —  that  it  is  a  love- 
poem  to  his  dead  lady;  a  song  of  praise  for 
her  watch  over  his  soul.  Stooping  only  to 
pity,  never  to  love,  she  yet  saves  him  from 
destruction  —  saves  him  from  hell.  He  is 
going  eternally  astray  in  despair ;  she  comes 
down  from  heaven  to  his  help,  and  through- 
out the  ascents  of  Paradise  is  his  teacher, 
interpreting  for  him  the  most  difficult  truths, 
divine  and  human;  and  leading  him,  with 
rebuke  upon  rebuke,  from  star  to  star. 


90 


OF  queens'  gardens 

I  do  not  insist  upon  Dante's  conception  ; 
if  I  began,  I  could  not  cease :  besides,  you 
might  think  this  a  wild  imagination  of  one 
poet's  heart.  So  I  will  rather  read  to  you 
a  few  verses  of  the  deliberate  writing  of  a 
knight  of  Pisa  to  his  living  lady,  wholly 
characteristic  of  the  feeling  of  all  the  noblest 
men  of  the  thirteenth,  or  early  fourteenth, 
century,  preserved  among  many  other  such 
records  of  knightly  honour  and  love,  which 
Dante  Rossetti  has  gathered  for  us  from 
among  the  early  Italian  poets. 

"  For  lo  !  thy  law  is  passed 
That  this  my  love  should  manifestly  be 

To  serve  and  honour  thee  : 
And  so  I  do  ;  and  my  delight  is  full, 
Accepted  for  the  servant  of  thy  rule. 

"  Without  almost,  I  am  all  rapturous, 

Since  thus  my  will  was  set : 
To  serve,  thou  flower  of  joy,  thine  excellence  : 
Nor  ever  seems  it  anything  could  rouse 

A  pain  or  a  regret. 
But  on  thee  dwells  my  every  thought  and  sense  ; 
Considering  that  from  thee  all  virtues  spread 

As  from  a  fountain  head,  — 
That  in  thy  gift  is  wisdom's  best  avail, 

A  nd  honour  without  fail ; 
With  whom  each  sovereign  good  dwells  separate, 
Fulfilling  the  perfection  of  thy  state. 

"  Lady,  since  I  conceived 
Thy  pleasurable  aspect  in  my  heart, 

My  life  has  been  apart 
In  shining  brightness  and  the  place  of  truth; 


91 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

Which  till  that  time,  good  sooth, 
Groped  among  shadows  in  a  darken 'd  place, 

Where  many  hours  and  days 
It  hardly  ever  had  remember'd  good. 

But  now  my  servitude 
Is  thine,  and  I  am  full  of  joy  and  rest. 

A  man  from  a  wild  beast 
Thou  madest  me,  since  for  thy  love  I  lived." 


6i.  You  may  think,  perhaps,  a  Greek 
knight  would  have  had  a  lower  estimate  of 
women  than  this  Christian  lover.  His  spir- 
itual subjection  to  them  was  indeed  not  so 
absolute  ;  but  as  regards  their  own  personal 
character,  it  was  only  because  you  could  not 
have  followed  me  so  easily,  that  I  did  not 
take  the  Greek  women  instead  of  Shake- 
speare's ;  and  instance,  for  chief  ideal  types 
of  human  beauty  and  faith,  the  simple 
mother's  and  wife's  heart  of  Andromache; 
the  divine, yet  rejected  wisdom  of  Cassandra ; 
the  playful  kindness  and  simple  princess-life 
of  happy  Nausicaa;  the  housewifely  calm  of 
that  of^Penelope,  with  its  watch  upon  the 
sea;  the  ever  patient,  fearless,  hopelessly 
devoted  piety  of  the  sister  and  daughter,  in 
Antigone;  the  bowing  down  of  Iphigenia, 
lamb-like  and  silent;  and,  finally,  the  expec- 
tation of  the  resurrection,  made  clear  to 
the  soul  of  the  Greeks  in  the  return  from 
her  grave  of  that  Alcestis,  who,  to  save  her 


92 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

husband,  had    passed   calmly    through    the 
bitterness  of  death. 

62.  Now  I  could  multiply  witness  upon 
witness  of  this  kind  upon  you  if  I  had  time. 
I  would  take  Chaucer,  and  show  you  why 
he  wrote  a  Legend  of  Good  Women ;  but 
no  Legend  of  Good  Men.  I  would  take 
Spenser,  and  show  you  how  all  his  fairy 
knights  are  sometimes  deceived  and  some  - 
times  vanquished;  but  the  soul  of  Una  is 
never  darkened,  and  the  spear  of  Britomart 
is  never  broken.  Nay,  I  could  go  back  into 
the  mythical  teaching  of  the  most  ancient 
times,  and  show  you  how  the  great  people,  — 
by  one  of  whose  princesses  it  was  appointed 
that  the  Lawgiver  of  all  the  earth  should  be 
educated,  rather  than  by  his  own  kindred :  — 
how  that  great  Egyptian  people,  wisest  then 
of  nations,  gave  to  their  Spirit  of  Wisdom 
the  form  of  a  woman;  and  into  her  hand, 
for  a  symbol,  the  weaver's  shuttle ;  and 
how  the  name  and  the  form  of  that  spirit, 
adopted,  believed,  and  obeyed  by  the  Greeks, 
became  that  Athena  of  the  olive -helm,  and 
cloudy  shield,  to  faith  in  whom  you  owe, 
down  to  this  date,  whatever  you  hold  most 
precious  in  art,  in  literature,  or  in  types  of 
national  virtue. 

63.  But  I  will  not  wander  into  this  dis- 
tant and  mythical  element;  I  will  only  ask 


93 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

you  to  give  its  legitimate  value  to  the  testi- 
mony of  these  great  poets  and  men  of  the 
world,  —  consistent,  as  you  see  it  is,  on  this 
head.  I  will  ask  you  whether  it  can  be 
supposed  that  these  men,  in  the  main  work 
of  their  lives,  are  amusing  themselves  with  a 
fictitious  and  idle  view  of  the  relations 
betw^een  man  and  woman ;  nay,  worse  than 
fictitious  or  idle;  for  a  thing  may  be  imagi- 
nary, yet  desirable,  if  it  were  possible ;  but 
this,  their  ideal  of  woman,  is,  according  to 
our  common  idea  of  the  marriage  relation, 
wholly  undesirable.  The  woman,  we  say,  is 
not  to  guide,  nor  even  to  think  for  herself. 
The  man  is  always  to  be  the  wiser ;  he  is  to 
be  the  thinker,  the  ruler,  the  superior  in 
knowledge  and  discretion,  as  in  power. 

64.  Is  it  not  somewhat  important  to 
make  up  our  minds  on  this  matter?  Are 
all  these  great  men  mistaken,  or  are  we  ? 
Are  Shakespeare  and  ^schylus,  Dante  and 
Homer,  merely  dressing  dolls  for  us ;  or, 
worse  than  dolls,  unnatural  visions,  the  real- 
isation of  which,  w^ere  it  possible,  would 
bring  anarchy  into  all  households  and  ruin 
into  all  affections  .•*  Nay,  if  you  can  suppose 
this,  take  lastly  the  evidence  of  facts  given 
by  the  human  heart  itself.  In  all  Christian 
ages  which  have  been  remarkable  for  their 
purity  of  progress,  there  has  been  absolute 


94 


OF   QUEENS'    GAEDENS 

yielding  of  obedient  devotion,  by  the  lover, 
to  his  mistress.  I  say  obedient;  —  not  merely 
enthusiastic  and  worshipping  in  imagination, 
but  entirely  subject,  receiving  from  the 
beloved  woman,  however  young,  not  only 
the  encouragement,  the  praise,  and  the 
reward  of  all  toil,  but,  so  far  as  any  choice  is 
open,  or  any  question  difficult  of  decision, 
the  direction  of  all  toil.  That  chivalry,  to 
the  abuse  and  dishonour  of  which  are  attrib- 
utable primarily  whatever  is  cruel  in  war, 
unjust  in  peace,  or  corrupt  and  ignoble  in 
domestic  relations;  and  to  the  original 
purity  and  power  of  which  we  owe  the 
defence  alike  of  faith,  of  law,  and  of  love; 
—  that  chivalry,  I  say,  in  its  very  first 
conception  of  honourable  life,  assumes  the 
subjection  of  the  young  knight  to  the  com- 
mand—  should  it  even  be  the  command  in 
caprice  —  of  his  lady.  It  assumes  this, 
because  its  masters  knew  that  the  first  and 
necessary  impulse  of  every  truly  taught  and 
knightly  heart  is  this  of  blind  service  to  its 
lady  :  that  where  that  true  faith  and  captivity 
are  not,  all  wayward  and  wicked  passion 
must  be ;  and  that  in  this  rapturous  obedi- 
ence to  the  single  love  of  his  youth,  is  the 
sanctification  of  all  man's  strength,  and  the 
continuance  of  all  his  purposes.  And  this, 
not  because  such  obedience  would  be  safe, 


95 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

or  honourable,  were  it  ever  rendered  to  the 
unworthy ;  but  because  it  ought  to  be  impos- 
sible for  every  noble  youth  —  it  is  impossible 
for  every  one  rightly  trained  —  to  love  any 
one  whose  gentle  counsel  he  cannot  trust,  or 
whose  prayerful  command  he  can  hesitate  to 
obey. 

65.  I  do  not  insist  by  any  farther  argu- 
ment on  this,  for  I  think  it  should  commend 
itself  at  once  to  your  knowledge  of  what  has 
been,  and  to  your  feeling  of  what  should  be. 
You  cannot  think  that  the  buckling  on  of 
the  knight's  armour  by  his  lady's  hand  was  a 
mere  caprice  of  romantic  fashion.  It  is  the 
type  of  an  eternal  truth  —  that  the  soul's 
armour  is  never  well  set  to  the  heart  unless 
a  woman's  hand  has  braced  it ;  and  it  is  only 
when  she  braces  it  loosely  that  the  honour 
of  manhood  fails.  Know  you  not  those 
lovely  lines  —  I  would  they  were  learned  by 
all  youthful  ladies  of  England  — 

"  Ah,  wasteful  woman  !  —  she  who  may 
On  her  sweet  self  set  her  own  price, 
Knowing  he  cannot  choose  but  pay  — 
How  has  she  cheapen 'd  Paradise  ! 
How  given  for  nought  her  priceless  gift, 
How  spoil'd  the  bread  and  spill'd  the  wine, 
Which,  spent  with  due  respective  thrift, 
Had  made  brutes  men,  and  men  divine  !  "  i 


I     Coventry  Patmore.     You  cannot  read  him  too 
often  or  too  carefully  ;  as  far  as  I  know,  he  is  the  only 


96 


OF  queens'  gardens 

66.  Thus  much,  then,  respecting  the 
relations  of  lovers  I  believe  you  will  accept. 
But  what  we  too  often  doubt  is  the  fitness 
of  the  continuance  of  such  a  relation  through- 
out the  whole  of  human  life.  We  ihink  it 
right  in  the  lover  and  mistress,  not  in  the 
husband  and  wife.  That  is  to  say,  we  think 
that  a  reverent  and  tender  duty  is  due  to 
one  whose  affection  we  still  doubt,  and 
whose  character  we  as  yet  do  but  partially 
and  distantly  discern  ;  and  that  this  rever- 
ence and  duty  are  to  be  withdrawn,  when 
the  affection  has  become  wholly  and  limit- 
lessly  our  own,  and  the  character  has  been 
so  sifted  and  tried  that  we  fear  not  to 
entrust  it  with  the  happiness  of  our  lives. 
Do  you  not  see  how  ignoble  this  is,  as  well 
as  how  unreasonable  ?  Do  you  not  feel  that 
marriage,  —  when  it  is  marriage  at  all, —  is 
only  the  seal  which  marks  the  vowed  transi- 
tion of  temporary  into  untiring  service,  and 
of  fitful  into  eternal  love  ? 

67.  But  how,  you  will  ask,  is  the  idea  of 
this  guiding  function  of  the  woman  reconcil- 
able with  a  true  wifely  subjection  ?  Simply 
in  that  it  is  a  guiding^  not  a  determining, 
function.     Let  me  try  to  show  you  briefly 

living  poet  who  always  strengthens  and  purifies  ;  the 
others  sometimes  darken  and  nearly  always  depress, 
and  discourage,  the  imagination  they  deeply  seize. 


97 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

how  these  powers  seem  to  be  rightly  distin- 
guishable. 

We  are  foolish,  and  without  excuse  fool- 
ish, in  speaking  of  the  "  superiority  "  of  one 
sex  to  the  other,  as  if  they  could  be  com- 
pared in  similar  things.  Each  has  what  the 
other  has  not :  each  completes  the  other, 
and  is  completed  by  the  other:  they  are  in 
nothing  alike,  and  the  happiness  and  per- 
fection of  both  depends  on  each  asking  and 
receiving  from  the  other  what  the  other  only 
can  give. 

68.  Now  their  separate  characters  are 
briefly  these.  The  man's  power  is  active, 
progressive,  defensive.  He  is  eminently 
the  doer,  the  creator,  the  discoverer,  the 
defender.  His  intellect  is  for  speculation 
and  invention;  his  energy  for  adventure, 
for  war,  and  for  conquest  wherever  war  is 
just,  wherever  conquest  necessary.  But  the 
woman's  power  is  for  rule,  not  for  battle, — 
and  her  intellect  is  not  for  invention  or 
creation,  but  for  sweet  ordering,  arrange- 
ment, and  decision.  She  sees  the  qualities 
of  things,  their  claims,  and  their  places. 
Her  great  function  is  Praise:  she  enters 
into  no  contest,  but  infallibly  adjudges  the 
crown  of  contest.  By  her  office,  and  place, 
she  is  protected  from  all  danger  and  tempta- 
tion.    The  man,  in  his  rough  work  in  the 


98 


OF  queens'  gardens 

open  world,  must  encounter  all  peril  and 
trial:  —  to  him,  therefore,  must  be  the  fail- 
ure, the  offence,  the  inevitable  error :  often 
he  must  be  wounded,  or  subdued ;  often 
misled;  and  always  hardened.  But  he 
guards  the  woman  from  all  this;  within 
his  house,  as  ruled  by  her,  unless  she  her- 
self has  sought  it,  need  enter  no  danger, 
no  temptation,  no  cause  of  error  or  offence. 
This  is  the  true  nature  of  home  —  it  is  the 
place  of  Peace  ;  the  shelter,  not  only  from 
all  injury,  but  from  all  terror,  doubt,  and 
division.  In  so  far  as  it  is  not  this,  it  is  not 
home ;  so  far  as  the  anxieties  of  the  outer 
life  penetrate  into  it,  and  the  inconsistently - 
minded,  unknown,  unloved,  or  hostile  society 
of  the  outer  world  is  allowed  by  either  hus- 
band or  wife  to  cross  the  threshold,  it  ceases 
to  be  home ;  it  is  then  only  a  part  of  that 
outer  world  which  you  have  roofed  over, 
and  lighted  fire  in.  But  so  far  as  it  is  a 
sacred  place,  a  vestal  temple,  a  temple  of  the 
hearth  watched  over  by  Household  Gods, 
before  whose  faces  none  may  come  but  those 
whom  they  can  receive  with  love,  —  so  far  as 
it  is  this,  and  roof  and  fire  are  types  only  of  a 
nobler  shade  and  light,  —  shade  as  of  the  rock 
in  a  weary  land,  and  light  as  of  the  Pharos 
in  the  stormy  sea;  —  so  far  it  vindicates  the 
name,  and  fulfils  the  praise,  of  Home. 


99 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

And  wherever  a  true  wife  comes,  this 
home  is  always  round  her.  The  stars  only 
may  be  over  her  head ;  the  glowworm  in  the 
night-cold  grass  may  be  the  only  fire  at  her 
foot :  but  home  is  yet  wherever  she  is  ;  and 
for  a  noble  woman  it  stretches  far  round 
her,  better  than  ceiled  with  cedar,  or  painted 
with  vermilion,  shedding  its  quiet  light  far, 
for  those  who  else  were  homeless. 

69.  This,  then,  I  believe  to  be,  —  will 
you  not  admit  it  to  be.-*  —  the  woman's  true 
place  and  power.  But  do  not  you  see  that, 
to  fulfil  this,  she  must — as  far  as  one  can 
use  such  terms  of  a  human  creature  —  be 
incapable  of  error  ?  So  far  as  she  rules,  all 
must  be  right,  or  nothing  is.  She  must  be 
enduringly,  incorruptibly  good;  instinctively, 
infallibly  wise  —  wise,  not  for  self -develop- 
ment, but  for  self-renunciation:  wise,  not 
that  she  may  set  herself  above  her  husband, 
but  that  she  may  never  fail  from  his  side : 
wise,  not  with  the  narrowness  of  insolent 
and  loveless  pride,  but  with  the  passionate 
gentleness  of  an  infinitely  variable,  because 
infinitely  applicable,  modesty  of  service  — 
the  true  changefulness  of  woman.  In  that 
great  sense  —  '*  La  donna  e  mobile,"  not 
"  Qual  pium'  al  vento  " ;  no,  nor  yet  "  Varia- 
ble as  the  shade,  by  the  light  quivering  aspen 
made  " ;  but  variable  as  the  lights  manifold  in 


OF  queens'  gardens 

fair  and  serene  division,  that  it  may  take  the 
colour  of  all  that  it  falls  upon,  and  exalt  it. 

70.  II.  I  have  been  trying,  thus  far,  to 
show  you  what  should  be  the  place,  and 
what  the  power,  of  woman.  Now,  secondly, 
we  ask.  What  kind  of  education  is  to  fit  her 
for  these  ? 

And  if  you  indeed  think  this  a  true  con- 
ception of  her  office  and  dignity,  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  trace  the  course  of  education 
which  would  fit  her  for  the  one,  and  raise 
her  to  the  other. 

The  first  of  our  duties  to  her  —  no 
thoughtful  persons  now  doubt  this,  —  is  to 
secure  for  her  such  physical  training  and 
exercise  as  may  confirm  her  health,  and 
perfect  her  beauty;  the  highest  refinement 
of  that  beauty  being  unattainable  without 
splendour  of  activity  and  of  delicate  strength. 
To  perfect  her  beauty,  I  say,  and  increase  its 
power;  it  cannot  be  too  powerful,  nor  shed 
its  sacred  light  too  far :  only  remember  that 
all  physical  freedom  is  vain  to  produce 
beauty  without  a  corresponding  freedom  of 
heart.  There  are  two  passages  of  that  poet 
who  is  distinguished,  it  seems  to  me,  from 
all  others  —  not  by  power,  but  by  exquisite 
rightness  —  which  point  you  to  the  source, 
and  describe  to  you,  in  a  few  syllables,  the 
completion  of  womanly  beauty.     I  will  read 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

the  introductory  stanzas,  but  the  last  is  the 
one  I  wish  you  specially  to  notice  :  — 

"  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower, 
Then  Nature  said,  *  A  lovelier  flower 

*  On  earth  was  never  sown  ; 

*  This  child  I  to  myself  will  take  ; 

'  She  shall  be  mine,  and  I  will  make 

*  A  lady  of  my  own. 

"  *  Myself  will  to  my  darling  be 
'  Both  law  and  impulse  ;  and  with  me 

'  The  girl,  in  rock  and  plain, 
'  In  earth  and  heaven,  in  glade  and  bower, 

*  Shall  feel  an  overseeing  power 
.  ,  '  To  kindle,  or  restrain. 

"*  *  The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 

*  To  her,  for  her  the  willow  bend  ; 

*  Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see 

'  Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm, 

*  Grace  that  shall  mould  the  maiden's  form 

*  By  silent  sympathy. 

**  *  And  vital  feelings  of  delight 
'  Shall  rear  her  form  to  stately  height,  — 

*  Her  virgin  bosom  swell. 

*  Such  thoughts  to  Lucy  I  will  give, 

*  While  she  and  I  together  live,  , 

*  Here  in  this  happy  dell.'  "  i  > 

"  Vital  feehng  of  delight,"  observe.  There 
are  deadly  feelings  of  delight ;  but  the  nat- 
ural ones  are  vital,  necessary  to  very  life. 


I     Observe,  it  is  "  Nature  "  who  is  speaking  through- 
out, and  who  says,  "  while  she  and  1  together  live." 


OF  queens'  gardens 

And  they  must  be  feelings  of  delight,  if 
they  are  to  be  vital.  Do  not  think  you  can 
make  a  girl  lovely,  if  you  do  not  make  her 
happy.  There  is  not  one  restraint  you  put 
on  a  good  girl's  nature  —  there  is  not  one 
clieck  you  give  to  her  instincts  of  affection 
or  of  effort — which  will  not  be  indelibly 
written  on  her  features,  with  a  hardness 
which  is  all  the  more  painful  because  it 
takes  away  the  brightness  from  the  eyes  of 
innocence,  and  the  charm  from  the  brow  of 
virtue. 

71.  This  for  the  means:  now  note  the 
end.  Take  from  the  same  poet,  in  two  lines, 
a  perfect  description  of  womanly  beauty  — 

"  A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 
Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet." 

The  perfect  loveliness  of  a  woman's  coun- 
tenance can  only  consist  in  that  majestic 
peace  which  is  founded  in  memory  of  happy 
and  useful  years, — full  of  sweet  records; 
and  from  the  joining  of  this  with  that  yet 
more  majestic  childishness,  which  is  still  full 
of  change  and  promise ;  —  opening  always  — 
modest  at  once,  and  bright,  with  hope  of 
better  things  to  be  won,  and  to  be  bestowed- 
There  is  no  old  age  where  there  is  still  that 
promise. 

72.  Thus,  then,  you  have  first  to  mould 
her  physical  frame,  and  then,  as  the  strength 

103 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

she  gains  will  permit  you,  to  fill  and  temper 
her  mind  with  all  knowledge  and  thoughts 
which  tend  to  confirm  its  natural  instincts 
of  justice,  and  refine  its  natural  tact  of  love. 
All  such  knowledge  should  be  given  her 
as  may  enable  her  to  understand,  and  even 
to  aid,  the  work  of  men :  and  yet  it  should 
be  given,  not  as  knowledge,  —  not  as  if  it 
were,  or  could  be,  for  her  an  object  to  know  ; 
but  only  to  feel,  and  to  judge.  It  is  of  no 
moment,  as  a  matter  of  pride  or  perfectness 
in  herself,  whether  she  knows  many  lan- 
guages or  one ;  but  it  is  of  the  utmost,  that 
she  should  be  able  to  show  kindness  to  a 
stranger,  and  to  understand  the  sweetness  of 
a  stranger's  tongue.  It  is  of  no  moment  to 
her  own  worth  or  dignity  that  she  should  be 
acquainted  with  this  science  or  that ;  but  it 
is  of  the  highest  that  she  should  be  trained 
in  habits  of  accurate  thought ;  that  she 
should  understand  the  meaning,  the  inevita- 
bleness,  and  the  loveliness  of  natural  laws  ; 
and  follow  at  least  some  one  path  of  scientific 
attainment,  as  far  as  to  the  threshold  of  that 
bitter  Valley  of  Humiliation,  into  which  only 
the  wisest  and  bravest  of  men  can  descend, 
owning  themselves  for  ever  children,  gath- 
ering pebbles  on  a  boundless  shore.  It  is 
of  little  consequence  how  many  positions  of 
cities   she  knows,  or   how   many  dates   of 

104 


OF  queens'  gardens 

events,  or  names  of  celebrated  persons  —  it 
is  not  the  object  of  education  to  turn  the 
woman  into  a  dictionary ;  but  it  is  deeply 
necessary  that  she  should  be  taught  to  enter 
with  her  whole  personality  into  the  history 
she  reads ;  to  picture  the  passages  of  it  vitally 
in  her  own  bright  imagination ;  to  apprehend, 
with  her  fine  instincts,  the  pathetic  circum- 
stances and  dramatic  relations,  which  the 
historian  too  often  only  eclipses  by  his 
reasoning,  and  disconnects  by  his  arrange- 
ment :  it  is  for  her  to  trace  the  hidden 
equities  of  divine  reward,  and  catch  sight, 
through  the  darkness,  of  the  fateful  threads 
of  woven  fire  that  connect  error  with  retribu- 
tion. But,  chiefly  of  all,  she  is  to  be  taught 
to  extend  the  limits  of  her  sympathy  with 
respect  to  that  history  which  is  being  for 
ever  determined  as  the  moments  pass  in 
which  she  draws  her  peaceful  breath ;  and  to 
the  contemporary  calamity,  which,  were  it 
but  rightly  mourned  by  her,  would  recur  no 
more  hereafter.  She  is  to  exercise  herself 
in  imagining  what  would  be  the  effects  upon 
her  mind  and  conduct,  if  she  were  daily 
brought  into  the  presence  of  the  suffering 
which  is  not  the  less  real  because  shut  from 
her  sight.  She  is  to  be  taught  somewhat  to 
understand  the  nothingness  of  the  proportion 
which  that  little  world  in  which  she  lives  and 

105 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

loves,  bears  to  the  world  in  which  God  lives 
and  loves; — and  solemnly  she  is  to  be 
taught  to  strive  that  her  thoughts  of  piety 
may  not  be  feeble  in  proportion  to  the 
number  they  embrace,  nor  her  prayer  more 
languid  than  it  is  for  the  momentary  relief 
from  pain  of  her  husband  or  her  child,  when 
it  is  uttered  for  the  multitudes  of  those  who 
have  none  to  love  them,  —  and  is,  "  for  all 
who  are  desolate  and  oppressed." 

73.  Thus  far,  I  think,  I  have  had  your 
concurrence;  perhaps  you  will  not  be  with 
me  in  what  I  believe  is  most  needful  for  me 
to  say.  There  is  one  dangerous  science  for 
women  —  one  which  they  must  indeed  beware 
how  they  profanely  touch  —  that  of  theology. 
Strange,  and  miserably  strange,  that  while 
they  are  modest  enough  to  doubt  their  powers, 
and  pause  at  the  threshold  of  sciences  where 
every  step  is  demonstrable  and  sure,  they  will 
plunge  headlong,  and  without  one  thought  of 
incompetency,  into  that  science  in  which  the 
greatest  men  have  trembled,  and  the  wisest 
erred.  Strange,  that  they  will  complacently 
and  pridef ully  bind  up  whatever  vice  or  folly 
there  is  in  them,  whatever  arrogance,  petu- 
lance, or  blind  incomprehensiveness,  into  one 
bitter  bundle  of  consecrated  myrrh.  Strange 
in  creatures  born  to  be  Love  visible,  that 
where  they  can  know  least,  they  will  condemn 

106 


OF   QUEENS*    GARDENS 

first,  and  think  to  recommend  themselves  to 
their  Master,  by  crawling  up  the  steps  of 
His  judgment -throne,  to  divide  it  with  Him. 
Strangest  of  all,  that  they  should  think  they 
were  led  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Comforter  into 
habits  of  mind  which  have  become  in  them 
the  unmixed  elements  of  home  discomfort ; 
and  that  they  dare  to  turn  the  Household 
Gods  of  Christianity  into  ugly  idols  of  their 
own;  —  spiritual  dolls,  for  them  to  dress 
according  to  their  caprice ;  and  from  which 
their  husbands  must  turn  away  in  grieved 
contempt,  lest  they  should  be  shrieked  at  for 
breaking  them. 

74.  I  believe,  then,  with  this  exception, 
that  a  girl's  education  should  be  nearly,  in 
its  course  and  material  of  study,  the  same  as 
a  boy's ;  but  quite  differently  directed.  A 
woman,  in  any  rank  of  life,  ought  to  know 
whatever  her  husband  is  likely  to  know,  but 
to  know  it  in  a  different  way.  His  command 
of  it  should  be  foundational  and  progressive  ; 
hers,  general  and  accomplished  for  daily  and 
helpful  use.  Not  but  that  it  would  often  be 
wiser  in  men  to  learn  things  in  a  womanly 
sort  of  way,  for  present  use,  and  to  seek  for 
the  discipline  and  training  of  their  mental 
powers  in  such  branches  of  study  as  will 
be  afterwards  fitted  for  social  service;  but, 
speaking  broadly,  a  man  ought  to  know  any 

107 


♦  SESAME   AND    LILIES 

language  or  science  he  learns,  thoroughly  — 
while  a  woman  ought  to  know  the  same 
language,  or  science,  only  so  far  as  may 
enable  her  to  sympathise  in  her  husband's 
pleasures,  and  in  those  of  his  best  friends. 

75.  Yet,  observe,  with  exquisite  accuracy 
as  far  as  she  reaches.  There  is  a  wide 
difference  between  elementary  knowledge 
and  superficial  knowledge  —  between  a  firm 
beginning,  and  an  infirm  attempt  at  compass- 
ing. A  woman  may  always  help  her  husband 
by  what  she  knows,  however  little  ;  by  what 
she  half-knows,  or  mis-knows,  she  will  only 
tease  him. 

And  indeed,  if  there  were  to  be  any  differ- 
ence between  a  girl's  education  and  a  boy's, 
I  should  say  that  of  the  two  the  girl  should 
be  earlier  led,  as  her  intellect  ripens  faster, 
into  deep  and  serious  subjects :  and  that  her 
range  of  literature  should  be,  not  more,  but 
less  frivolous ;  calculated  to  add  the  qualities 
of  patience  and  seriousness  to  her  natural 
poignancy  of  thought  and  quickness  of  wit ; 
and  also  to  keep  her  in  a  lofty  and  pure 
element  of  thought.  I  enter  not  now  into 
any  question  of  choice  of  books ;  only  let 
us  be  sure  that  her  books  are  not  heaped  up 
in  her  lap  as  they  fall  out  of  the  package  of 
the  circulating  library,  wet  with  the  last  and 
lightest  spray  of  the  fountain  of  folly. 

108 


OF  queens'  gardens 

76.  Or  even  of  the  fountain  of  wit;  for 
with  respect  to  the  sore  temptation  of  novel 
reading,  it  is  not  the  badness  of  a  novel  that 
we  should  dread,  so  much  as  its  overwrought 
interest.  The  weakest  romance  is  not  so 
stupefying  as  the  lower  forms  of  religious 
exciting  literature,  and  the  worst  romance 
is  not  so  corrupting  as  false  history,  false 
philosophy,  or  false  political  essays.  But 
the  best  romance  becomes  dangerous,  if,  by 
its  excitement,  it  renders  the  ordinary  course 
of  life  uninteresting,  and  increases  the  morbid 
thirst  for  useless  acquaintance  with  scenes  in 
which  we  shall  never  be  called  upon  to  act. 

77.  I  speak  therefore  of  good  novels  only ; 
and  our  modern  literature  is  particularly  rich 
in  types  of  such.  V/ell  read,  indeed,  these 
books  have  serious  use,  being  nothing  less 
than  treatises  on  moral  anatomy  and  chemis- 
try; studies  of  human  nature  in  the  elements 
of  it.  But  I  attach  little  w^eight  to  this 
function;  they  are  hardly  ever  read  with 
earnestness  enough  to  permit  them  to  fulfil 
it.  The  utmost  they  usually  do  is  to  enlarge 
somewhat  the  charity  of  a  kind  reader,  or 
the  bitterness  of  a  malicious  one;  for  each 
will  gather,  from  the  novel,  food  for  her  own 
disposition.  Those  who  are  naturally  proud 
and  envious  will  learn  from  Thackeray  to 
despise  humanity ;  those  who  are  naturally 

109 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

gentle,  to  pity  it;  those  who  are  naturally 
shallow,  to  laugh  at  it.  So,  also,  there  might 
be  a  serviceable  power  in  novels  to  bring 
before  us,  in  vividness,  a  human  truth  which 
we  had  before  dimly  conceived ;  but  the 
temptation  to  picturesqueness  of  statement 
is  so  great,  that  often  the  best  writers  of 
fiction  cannot  resist  it;  and  our  views  are 
rendered  so  violent  and  one-sided,  that  their 
vitality  is  rather  a  harm  than  good. 

78.  Without,  however,  venturing  here  on 
any  attempt  at  decision  how  much  novel 
reading  should  be  allowed,  let  me  at  least 
clearly  assert  this,  that  whether  novels,  or 
poetry,  or  history  be  read,  they  should  be 
chosen,  not  for  their  freedom  from  evil,  but 
for  their  possession  of  good.  The  chance 
and  scattered  evil  that  may  here  and  there 
haunt,  or  hide  itself  in,  a  powerful  book, 
never  does  any  harm  to  a  noble  girl ;  but  the 
emptiness  of  an  author  oppresses  her,  and 
his  amiable  folly  degrades  her.  And  if  she 
can  have  access  to  a  good  library  of  old  and 
classical  books,  there  need  be  no  choosing 
at  all.  Keep  the  modern  magazine  and 
novel  out  of  your  girl's  way;  turn  her  loose 
into  the  old  library  every  wet  day,  and  let 
her  alone.  She  will  find  what  is  good  for 
her;  you  cannot ;  for  there  is  just  this  dif- 
ference  between    the  making    of    a   girl's 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 

character  and  a  boy's  —  you  may  chisel  a 
boy  into  shape,  as  you  would  a  rock,  or 
hammer  him  into  it,  if  he  be  of  a  better 
kind,  as  you  would  a  piece  of  bronze.  But 
you  cannot  hammer  a  girl  into  anything. 
She  grows  as  a  flower  does,  —  she  will  wither 
without  sun ;  she  will  decay  in  her  sheath, 
as  a  narcissus  will,  if  you  do  not  give  her  air 
enough ;  she  may  fall,  and  defile  her  head  in 
dust,  if  you  leave  her  without  help  at  some 
moments  of  her  life ;  but  you  cannot  fetter 
her ;  she  must  take  her  own  fair  form  and 
way,  if  she  take  any,  and  in  mind  as  in  body, 
must  have  always 

"  Her  household  motions  light  and  free, 
And  steps  of  virgin  liberty." 

Let  her  loose  in  the  library,  I  say,  as  you  do 
a  fawn  in  the  field.  It  knows  the  bad  weeds 
twenty  times  better  than  you ;  and  the  good 
ones  too,  and  will  eat  some  bitter  and  prickly 
ones,  good  for  it,  which  you  had  not  the 
slightest  thought  would  have  been  so. 

79.  Then,  in  art,  keep  the  finest  models 
before  her,  and  let  her  practice  in  all  accom- 
plishments be  accurate  and  thorough,  so  as 
to  enable  her  to  understand  more  than  she 
accomplishes.  I  say  the  finest  models  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  truest,  simplest,  usef  ullest. 
Note  those  epithets  ;  they  will  range  through 
all  the  arts.     Try  them  in  music,  where  you 

III 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

might  think  them  the  least  applicable.  I 
say  the  truest,  that  in  which  the  notes  most 
closely  and  faithfully  express  the  meaning 
of  the  words,  or  the  character  of  intended 
emotion;  again,  the  simplest,  that  in  which 
the  meaning  and  melody  are  attained  with 
the  fewest  and  most  significant  notes  possi- 
ble ;  and,  finally,  the  usef ullest,  that  music 
which  makes  the  best  words  most  beautiful, 
which  enchants  them  in  our  memories  each 
with  its  own  glory  of  sound,  and  which 
applies  them  closest  to  the  heart  at  the 
moment  we  need  them. 

80.  And  not  only  in  the  material  and  in 
the  course,  but  yet  more  earnestly  in  the 
spirit  of  it,  let  a  girl's  education  be  as  serious 
as  a  boy's.  You  bring  up  your  girls  as  if 
they  were  meant  for  sideboard  ornaments, 
and  then  complain  of  their  frivolity.  Give 
them  the  same  advantages  that  you  give 
their  brothers  —  appeal  to  the  same  grand 
instincts  of  virtue  in  them;  teach  them^  also, 
that  courage  and  truth  are  the  pillars  of  their 
being :  —  do  you  think  that  they  would  not 
answer  that  appeal,  brave  and  true  as  they 
are  even  now,  when  you  know  that  there 
is  hardly  a  girls'  school  in  this  Christian 
kingdom  where  the  children's  courage  or 
sincerity  would  be  thought  of  half  so  much 
importance  as  their  way  of  coming  in  at  a 


OF  queens'  gardens 

door ;  and  when  the  whole  system  of  society, 
as  respects  the  mode  of  establishmg  them  in 
life,  is  one  rotten  plague  of  cowardice  and 
imposture  —  cowardice,  in  not  daring  to  let 
them  live,  or  love,  except  as  their  neighbours 
choose ;  an  imposture,  in  bringing,  for  the 
purposes  of  our  own  pride,  the  full  glow  of 
the  world's  worst  vanity  upon  a  girl's  eyes, 
at  the  very  period  when  the  whole  happiness 
of  her  future  existence  depends  upon  her 
remaining  undazzled  ? 

81.  And  give  them,  lastly,  not  only  noble 
teachings,  but  noble  teachers.  You  consider 
somewhat,  before  you  send  your  boy  to 
school,  what  kind  of  a  man  the  master  is;  — 
whatsoever  kind  of  man  he  is,  you  at  least 
give  him  full  authority  over  your  son,  and 
show  some  respect  to  him  yourself:  —  if  he 
comes  to  dine  w4th  you,  you  do  not  put  him 
at  a  side  table:  you  know  also  that,  at 
college,  your  child's  immediate  tutor  will  be 
under  the  direction  of  some  still  higher  tutor, 
for  whom  you  have  absolute  reverence.  You 
do  not  treat  the  Dean  of  Christ  Church  or 
the  Master  of  Trinity  as  your  inferiors. 

But  what  teachers  do  you  give  your  girls, 
and  what  reverence  do  you  show  to  the 
teachers  you  have  chosen  ?  Is  a  girl  likely 
to  think  her  own  conduct,  or  her  own  intel- 
lect, of  much  importance,  when  you  trust  the 

"3 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

entire  formation  of  her  character,  moral  and 
intellectual,  to  a  person  whom  you  let  your 
servants  treat  with  less  respect  than  they  do 
your  housekeeper  (as  if  the  soul  of  your 
child  were  a  less  charge  than  jams  and 
groceries),  and  whom  you  yourself  think  you 
confer  an  honour  upon  by  letting  her  some- 
times sit  in  the  drawing-room  in  the  evening? 
82.  Thus,  then,  of  literature  as  her  help 
and  thus  of  art.  There  is  one  more  help 
which  she  cannot  do  without  —  one  which, 
alone,  has  sometimes  done  more  than  all 
other  influences  besides,  —  the  help  of  wild 
and  fair  nature.  Hear  this  of  the  education 
of  Joan  of  Arc:  — 

"  The  education  of  this  poor  girl  was  mean,  accord- 
ing to  the  present  standard  ;  was  ineffably  grand, 
according  to  a  purer  philosophical  standard  ;  and  only 
not  good  for  our  age,  because  for  us  it  would  be 
unattainable.     .     .     . 

"  Next  after  her  spiritual  advantages,  she  owed  most 
to  the  advantages  of  her  situation.  The  fountain  of 
Domremy  was  on  the  brink  of  a  boundless  forest ;  and 
it  was  haunted  to  that  degree  by  fairies,  that  the  parish 
priest  {cure)  was  obliged  to  read  mass  there  once  a 
year,  in  order  to  keep  them  in  decent  bounds.    .    .    . 

"But  the  forests  of  Domremy  —  those  were  the 
glories  of  the  land ;  for  in  them  abode  mysterious 
powers  and  ancient  secrets  that  towered  into  tragic 
strength.  Abbeys  there  were,  and  abbey  windows,  — 
*  like  Moorish  temples  of  the  Hindoos,' —  that  exercised 
even  princely  power  both  in  Touraine  and  in  the  Ger- 
man Diets.    These  had  their  sweet  bells  that  pierced 

114 


OF  queens'  gardens 

the  forests  for  many  a  league  at  matins  or  vespers,  and 
each  its  own  dreamy  legend.  Few  enough,  and  scat- 
tered enough,  were  these  abbeys,  so  as  in  no  degree  to 
disturb  the  deep  solitude  of  the  region ;  yet  many 
enough  to  spread  a  network  or  awning  of  Christian 
sanctity  over  what  else  might  have  seemed  a  heathen 
wilderness."  i 

Now,  you  cannot,  indeed,  have  here  in 
England,  woods  eighteen  miles  deep  to  the 
centre;  but  you  can,  perhaps,  keep  a  fairy  or 
two  for  your  children  yet,  if  you  wish  to 
keep  them.  But  do  you  wish  it  ?  Suppose 
you  had  each,  at  the  back  of  your  houses,  a 
garden,  large  enough  for  your  children  to 
play  in,  with  just  as  much  lawn  as  would 
give  them  room  to  run,  —  no  more  —  and 
that  you  could  not  change  your  abode  ;  but 
that,  if  you  chose,  you  could  double  your 
income,  or  quadruple  it,  by  digging  a  coal 
shaft  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn,  and  turning 
the  flower-beds  into  heaps  of  coke.  Would 
you  do  it  ?  I  hope  not.  I  can  tell  you,  you 
would  be  wrong  if  you  did,  though  it  gave 
you  income  sixty -fold  instead  of  four-fold. 

83.  Yet  this  is  what  you  are  doing  with 
all  England.  The  whole  country  is  but  a 
little  garden,  not  more  than  enough  for  your 
children  to  run  on  the  lawns  of,  if  you  would 

I  "Joan  of  Arc  :  in  reference  to  M.  Michelet's  '  His- 
tory of  France.'  " — De  Quincey'sWorks,vol.  iii,  p.  217, 

"5 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

let  them  all  run  there.  And  this  little  gar- 
den you  will  turn  into  furnace  ground,  and 
fill  with  heaps  of  cinders,  if  you  can;  and 
those  children  of  yours,  not  you,  will  suffer 
for  it.  For  the  fairies  will  not  be  all  ban- 
ished; there  are  fairies  of  the  furnace  as  of 
the  wood,  and  their  first  gift  seems  to  be 
"  sharp  arrows  of  the  mighty ;  "  but  their  last 
gifts  are  "  coals  of  juniper." 

84.  And  yet  I  cannot — though  there  is 
no  part  of  my  subject  that  I  feel  more  — 
press  this  upon  you;  for  we  made  so  little 
use  of  the  power  of  nature  while  we  had  it 
that  we  shall  hardly  feel  what  we  have  lost. 
Just  on  the  other  side  of  the  Mersey  you 
have  your  Snowdon,  and  your  Menai  Straits, 
and  that  mighty  granite  rock  beyond  the 
moors  of  Anglesea,  splendid  in  its  heathery 
crest,  and  foot  planted  in  the  deep  sea,  once 
thought  of  as  sacred  —  a  divine  promontory, 
looking  westward;  the  Holy  Head  or  Head- 
land, still  not  without  awe  when  its  red  light 
glares  first  through  storm.  These  are  the 
hills,  and  these  the  bays  and  blue  inlets, 
which,  among  the  Greeks,  would  have  been 
always  loved,  always  fateful  in  influence  on 
the  national  mind.  That  Snowdon  is  your 
Parnassus  ;  but  where  are  its  Muses .''  That 
Holyhead  mountain  is  your  Island  of  ^Egina ; 
but  where  is  its  Temple  to  Minerva  t 

116 


OF  queens'  gardens 

85.  Shall  I  read  you  what  the  Christian 
Minerva  had  achieved  under  the  shadow  of 
our  Parnassus  up  to  the  year  1848?  —  Here 
is  a  little  account  of  a  Welsh  school,  from 
page  261  of  the  Report  on  Wales,  published 
by  the  Committee  of  Council  on  Education. 
This  is  a  school  close  to  a  tow^n  containing 
5,000  persons :  — 

"  I  then  called  up  a  larger  class,  most  of  whom  had 
recently  come  to  the  school.  Three  girls  repeatedly 
declared  they  had  never  heard  of  Christ,  and  two  that 
they  had  never  heard  of  God.  Two  out  of  six  thought 
Christ  was  on  earth  now  "  (they  might  have  had  a 
worse  thought  perhaps),  "three  knew  nothing  about 
the  Crucifixion.  Four  out  of  seven  did  not  know  the 
names  of  the  months  nor  the  number  of  days  in  a 
year.  They  had  no  notion  of  addition ;  beyond  two 
and  two,  or  three  and  three,  their  minds  were  perfect 
blanks." 

Oh,  ye  women  of  England!  from  the  Prin- 
cess of  that  Wales  to  the  simplest  of  you, 
do  not  think  your  own  children  can  be 
brought  into  their  true  fold  of  rest,  while 
these  are  scattered  on  the  hills,  as  sheep 
having  no  shepherd.  And  do  not  think  your 
daughters  can  be  trained  to  the  truth  of  their 
own  human  beauty,  while  the  pleasant  places, 
which  God  made  at  once  for  their  school- 
room and  their  play-ground,  lie  desolate  and 
defiled.  You  cannot  baptise  them  rightly  in 
those  inch-deep  fonts  of  yours,  unless  you 

117 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

baptise  them  also  in  the  sweet  waters  which 
the  great  Lawgiver  strikes  forth  for  ever 
from  the  rocks  of  your  native  land  —  waters 
which  a  Pagan  would  have  worshipped  in 
their  purity,  and  you  worship  only  with 
pollution.  You  cannot  lead  your  children 
faithfully  to  those  narrow  axe -hewn  church 
altars  of  yours,  while  the  dark  azure  altars 
in  heaven  —  the  mountains  that  sustain  your 
island  throne,  —  mountains  on  which  a  Pagan 
would  have  seen  the  powers  of  heaven  rest 
in  every  wreathed  cloud  —  remain  for  you 
without  inscription ;  altars  built,  not  to,  but 
by  an  Unknown  God. 

86.  III.  Thus  far,  then,  of  the  nature, 
thus  far  of  the  teaching,  of  woman,  and  thus 
of  her  household  office,  and  queenliness. 
We  come  now  to  our  last,  our  widest  ques- 
tion, —  What  is  her  queenly  office  with 
respect  to  the  state  ? 

Generally,  we  are  under  an  impression 
that  a  man's  duties  are  public,  and  a  woman's 
private.  But  this  is  not  altogether  so.  A 
man  has  a  personal  work  or  duty,  relating  to 
his  own  home,  and  a  public  work  or  duty, 
which  is  the  expansion  of  the  other,  relating 
to  the  state.  So  a  woman  has  a  personal 
work  or  duty,  relating  to  her  own  home, 
and  a  public  work  or  duty,  which  is  also  the 
expansion  of  that. 

ii8 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

Now,  the  man's  work  for  his  own  home  is, 
as  has  been  said,  to  secure  its  maintenance, 
progress,  and  defence ;  the  woman's  to  secure 
its  order,  comfort,  and  loveliness. 

Expand  both  these  functions.  The  man's 
duty,  as  a  member  of  a  commonwealth,  is  to 
assist  in  the  maintenance,  in  the  advance, 
in  the  defence  of  the  state.  The  woman's 
duty,  as  a  member  of  the  commonwealth  is 
to  assist  in  the  ordering,  in  the  comforting, 
and  in  the  beautiful  adornment  of  the  state. 

What  the  man  is  at  his  own  gate,  defend- 
ing it,  if  need  be,  against  insult  and  spoil, 
that  also,  not  in  a  less,  but  in  a  more  devoted 
measure,  he  is  to  be  at  the  gate  of  his  coun- 
try, leaving  his  home,  if  need  be,  even  to  the 
spoiler,  to  do  his  more  incumbent  work 
there. 

And,  in  like  manner,  what  the  woman  is 
to  be  within  her  gates,  as  the  centre  of 
order,  the  balm  of  distress,  and  the  mirror 
of  beauty :  that  she  is  also  to  be  without  her 
gates,  where  order  is  more  difficult,  distress 
more  imminent,  loveliness  more  rare. 

And 'as  within  the  human  heart  there  is 
always  set  an  instinct  for  all  its  real  duties, 
—  an  instinct  which  you  cannot  quench,  but 
only  warp  and  corrupt  if  you  withdraw  it 
from  its  true  purpose: — as  there  is  the 
intense  instinct  of  love,  which,  rightly  disci - 

119 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

plined,  maintains  all  the  sanctities  of  life, 
and,  misdirected,  undermines  them ;  and 
must  do  either  the  one  or  the  other;  —  so 
there  is  in  the  human  heart  an  inextinguish- 
able instinct,  the  love  of  power,  which, 
rightly  directed,  maintains  all  the  majesty  of 
law  and  life,  and  misdirected,  wrecks  them. 
87.  Deep  rooted  in  the  innermost  life  of 
the  heart  of  man,  and  of  the  heart  of  woman, 
God  set  it  there,  and  God  keeps  it  there. 
Vainly,  as  falsely,  you  blame  or  rebuke  the 
desire  of  power  1  —  For  Heaven's  sake,  and 
for  Man's  sake,  desire  it  all  you  can.  But 
what  power?  That  is  all  the  question. 
Power  to  destroy  ?  the  lion's  limb,  and  the 
dragon's  breath  ?  Not  so.  Power  to  heal, 
to  redeem,  to  guide,  and  to  guard.  Power 
of  the  sceptre  and  shield ;  the  power  of  the 
royal  hand  that  heals  in  touching,  —  that 
binds  the  fiend,  and  looses  the  captive ;  the 
throne  that  is  founded  on  the  rock  of  Justice, 
and  descended  from  only  by  steps  of  Mercy. 
Will  you  not  covet  such  power  as  this,  and 
seek  such  throne  as  this,  and  be  no  more 
housewives,  but  queens  ? 

88.  It  is  now  long  since  the  women  of 
England  arrogated,  universally,  a  title  which 
once  belonged  to  nobility  only ;  and,  having 
once  been  in  the  habit  of  accepting  the 
simple  title  of  gentlewoman,  as  correspond- 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

ent  to  that  of  gentleman,  insisted  on  the 
privilege  of  assuming  the  title  of  "  Lady,"  i 
which  properly  corresponds  only  to  the  title 
of  "  Lord." 

I  do  not  blame  them  for  this ;  but  only 
for  their  narrow  motive  in  this.  I  would 
have  them  desire  and  claim  the  title  of  Lady, 
provided  they  claim,  not  merely  the  title,  but 
the  office  and  duty  signified  by  it.  Lady 
means  *' bread-giver*'  or  "  loaf -giver,"  and 
Lord  means  "  maintainer  of  laws,"  and  both 
titles  have  reference,  not  to  the  law  which 
is  maintained  in  the  house,  nor  to  the 
bread  which  is  given  to  the  household ;  but 
to  law  maintained  for  the  multitude,  and  to 
bread  broken  among  the  multitude.  So 
that  a  Lord  has  legal  claim  only  to  his  title 
in  so  far  as  he  is  the  maintainer  of  the 
justice  of  the  Lord  of  Lords;  and  a  Lady 
has  legal  claim  to  her  title,  only  so  far  as 
she  communicates   that    help   to   the   poor 

I  I  wish  there  were  a  true  order  of  chivalry  instituted 
for  our  English  youth  of  certain  ranks,in  which  both  boy 
and  girl  should  receive,  at  a  given  age,  their  knighthood 
and  ladyhood  by  true  title  ;  attainable  only  by  certain 
probation  and  trial  both  of  character  and  accomplish- 
ment ;  and  to  be  forfeited,  on  conviction,  by  their  peers, 
of  any  dishonourable  act.  Such  an  institution  would 
be  entirely,  and  with  all  noble  results,  possible,  in  a 
nation  which  loved  honour.  That  it  would  not  be 
possible  among  us,is  not  to  the  discredit  of  the  scheme. 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

representatives  of  her  Master,  which  women 
once,  ministering  to  Him  of  their  substance, 
were  permitted  to  extend  to  that  Master 
Himself;  and  when  she  is  known,  as  He 
Himself  once  was,  in  breaking  of  bread. 

89.  And  this  beneficent  and  legal  domin- 
ion, this  power  of  the  Dominus,  or  House- 
Lord,  and  of  the  Domina,  or  House- Lady, 
is  great  and  venerable,  not  in  the  number 
of  those  through  whom  it  has  lineally 
descended,  but  in  the  number  of  those 
whom  it  grasps  within  its  sway ;  it  is  always 
regarded  with  reverent  worship  wherever 
its  dynasty  is  founded  on  its  duty,  and  -its 
ambition  correlative  with  its  beneficence. 
Your  fancy  is  pleased  with  the  thought  of 
being  noble  ladies,  with  a  train  of  vassals  ? 
Be  it  so ;  you  cannot  be  too  noble,  and  your 
train  cannot  be  too  great;  but  see  to  it  that 
your  train  is  of  vassals  whom  you  serve 
and  feed,  not  merely  of  slaves  who  serve  and 
feed  you;  and  that  the  multitude  which 
obeys  you  is  of  those  whom  you  have  com- 
forted, not  oppressed,  —  whom  you  have 
redeemed,  not  led  into  captivity. 

90.  And  this,  which  is  true  of  the  lower 
or  household  dominion,  is  equally  true  of 
the  queenly  dominion  ;  —  that  highest  dignity 
is  open  to  you,  if  you  will  also  accept  that 
highest    duty.       Rex    et    Regina — Roi  et 


OF  queens'  gardens 

Reine  —  *^ Right-doQxs  ; "  they  differ  but  from 
the  Lady  and  Lord,  in  that  their  power  is 
supreme  over  the  mind  as  over  the  person  — 
that  they  not  only  feed  and  clothe,  but 
direct  and  teach.  And  whether  consciously 
or  not,  you  must  be,  in  many  a  heart, 
enthroned:  there  is  no  putting  by  that 
crown  ;  queens  you  must  always  be  ;  queens 
to  your  lovers  ;  queens  to  your  husbands 
and  your  sons ;  queens  of  higher  mystery  to 
the  world  beyond,  which  bows  itself,  and 
will  for  ever  bow,  before  the  myrtle  crown, 
and  the  stainless  sceptre  of  womanhood. 
But,  alas !  you  are  too  often  idle  and  care- 
less queens,  grasping  at  majesty  in  the  least 
things,  while  you  abdicate  it  in  the  greatest ; 
and  leaving  misrule  and  violence  to  work 
their  will  among  men,  in  defiance  of  the 
power  which,  holding  straight  in  gift  from 
the  Prince  of  all  Peace,  the  wicked  among 
you  betray,  and  the  good  forget. 

91.  "  Prince  of  Peace."  Note  that  name. 
When  kings  rule  in  that  name,  and  nobles, 
and  the  judges  of  the  earth,  they  also,  in 
their  narrow  place,  and  mortal  measure, 
receive  the  power  of  it.  There  are  no 
other  rulers  than  they :  other  rule  than 
theirs  is  but  misxnlQ  ;  they  who  govern  verily 
"  Dei  gratia  "  are  all  princes,  yes,  or  prin- 
cesses,  of  Peace.     There   is  not   a  war  in 

123 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

the  world,  no,  nor  an  injustice,  but  you 
women  are  answerable  for  it;  not  in  that 
you  have  provoked,  but  in  that  you  have 
not  hindered.  Men,  by  their  nature,  are 
prone  to  fight ;  they  will  fight  for  any  cause, 
or  for  none.  It  is  for  you  to  choose  their 
cause  for  them,  and  to  forbid  them  when 
there  is  no  cause.  There  is  no  suffering, 
no  injustice,  no  misery  in  the  earth,  but  the 
guilt  of  it  lies  with  you.  Men  can  bear 
the  sight  of  it,  but  you  should  not  be  able 
to  bear  it.  Men  may  tread  it  down  without 
sympathy  in  their  own  struggle  ;  but  men  are 
feeble  in  sympathy,  and  contracted  in  hope  ; 
it  is  you  only  who  can  feel  the  depths  of 
pain,  and  conceive  the  way  of  its  healing. 
Instead  of  trying  to  do  this,  you  turn  away 
from  it;  you  shut  yourselves  within  your 
park  walls  and  garden  gates ;  and  you  are 
content  to  know  that  there  is  beyond  them 
a  whole  world  in  wilderness  —  a  world  of 
secrets  which  you  dare  not  penetrate,  and 
of  suffering  which  you  dare  not  conceive. 

92.  I  tell  you  that  this  is  to  me  quite 
the  most  amazing  among  the  phenomena  of 
humanity.  I  am  surprised  at  no  depths  to 
which,  when  once  warped  from  its  honour, 
that  humanity  can  be  degraded.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  the  miser's  death,  with  his  hands, 
as  they  relax,  dropping  gold.     I  do  not  won- 

124 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

der  at  the  sensualist's  life,  with  the  shroud 
wrapped  about  his  feet.  I  do  not  wonder  at 
the  single-handed  murder  of  a  single  victim, 
done  by  the  assassin  in  the  darkness  of  the 
railway,  or  reed-shadow  of  the  marsh.  I 
do  not  even  wonder  at  the  myriad-handed 
murder  of  multitudes,  done  boastfully  in 
the  daylight,  by  the  frenzy  of  nations, 
and  the  immeasurable,  unimaginable  guilt, 
heaped  up  from  hell  to  heaven,  of  their 
priests,  and  kings.  But  this  is  wonderful 
to  me  —  oh,  how  wonderful !  —  to  see  the 
tender  and  delicate  woman  among  you,  with 
her  child  at  her  breast,  and  a  power,  if  she 
would  wield  it,  over  it,  and  over  its  father, 
purer  than  the  air  of  heaven,  and  stronger 
than  the  seas  of  earth  —  nay,  a  magnitude 
of  blessing  which  her  husband  would  not  part 
with  for  all  that  earth  itself,  though  it  were 
made  of  one  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite: 
—  to  see  her  abdicate  this  majesty  to  play 
at  precedence  with  her  next-door  neighbour! 
This  is  wonderful  —  oh,  wonderful !  —  to 
see  her,  with  every  innocent  feeling  fresh 
within  her,  go  out  in  the  morning  into  her 
garden  to  play  with  the  fringes  of  its  guarded 
flowers,  and  lift  their  heads  when  they  are 
drooping,  with  her  happy  smile  upon  her 
face,  and  no  cloud  upon  her  brow,  because 
there  is  a  little  wall  around  her  place  of 

125 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

peace ;  and  yet  she  knows,  in  her  heart,  if 
she  would  only  look  for  its  knowledge,  that, 
outside  of  that  little  rose-covered  wall,  the 
wild  grass,  to  the  horizon,  is  torn  up  by  the 
agony  of  men,  and  beat  level  by  the  drift  of 
their  life-blood. 

93.  Have  you  ever  considered  what  a 
deep  under  meaning  there  lies,  or  at  least 
may  be  read,  if  we  choose,  in  our  custom  of 
strewing  flowers  before  those  whom  we  think 
most  happy  ?  Do  you  suppose  it  is  merely 
to  deceive  them  into  the  hope  that  happiness 
is  always  to  fall  thus  in  showers  at  their 
feet? — that  wherever  they  pass  they  will 
tread  on  herbs  of  sweet  scent,  and  that  the 
rough  ground  will  be  made  smooth  for  them 
by  depth  of  roses  ?  So  surely  as  they  believe 
that,  they  will  have,  instead,  to  walk  on 
bitter  herbs  and  thorns ;  and  the  only  soft- 
ness to  their  feet  will  be  of  snow.  But  it  is 
not  thus  intended  they  should  believe;  there 
is  a  better  meaning  in  that  old  custom.  The 
path  of  a  good  woman  is  indeed  strewn 
with  flowers  ;  but  they  rise  behind  her  steps, 
not  before  them.  "  Her  feet  have  touched 
the  meadows,  and  left  the  daisies  rosy." 

94.  You  think  that  only  a  lover's  fancy  ; 
—  false  and  vain  !  How  if  it  could  be  true  ? 
You  think  this  also,  perhaps,  only  a  poet's 
fancy  — 

126 


OF  queens'  gardens 

"  Even  the  light  harebell  raised  its  head 
Elastic  from  her  airy  tread." 

But  it  is  little  to  say  of  a  woman,  that  she 
only  does  not  destroy  where  she  passes. 
She  should  revive;  the  harebells  should 
bloom,  not  stoop,  as  she  passes.  You  think 
I  am  rushing  into  wild  hyperbole  ?  Pardon 
me,  not  a  whit  —  I  mean  what  I  say  in  calm 
English,  spoken  in  resolute  truth.  You  have 
heard  it  said  —  (and  I  believe  there  is  more 
than  fancy  even  in  that  saying,  but  let  it 
pass  for  a  fanciful  one)  —  that  flowers  only 
flourish  rightly  in  the  garden  of  some  one 
who  loves  them.  I  know  you  would  like  that 
to  be  true;  you  would  think  it  a  pleasant 
magic  if  you  could  flush  your  flowers  into 
brighter  bloom  by  a  kind  look  upon  them : 
nay,  more,  if  your  look  had  the  power,  not 
only  to  cheer,  but  to  guard ;  —  if  you  could 
bid  the  black  blight  turn  away,  and  the 
knotted  caterpillar  spare  —  if  you  could  bid 
the  dew  fall  upon  them  in  the  drought,  and 
say  to  the  south  wind,  in  frost  —  '*Come, 
thou  south,  and  breathe  upon  my  garden, 
that  the  spices  of  it  may  flow  out."  This 
you  would  think  a  great  thing  ?  And  do  you 
think  it  not  a  greater  thing,  that  all  this, 
(and  how  much  more  than  this  ! )  you  can 
do,  for  fairer  flowers  than  these  —  flowers 
that   could   bless   you   for    having    blessed 

127 


SESAME   AND    LILIES 

them,  and  will  love  you  for  having  loved 
them ;  —  flowers  that  have  thoughts  like 
yours,  and  lives  like  yours;  and  which,  once 
saved,  you  save  for  ever  ?  Is  this  only  a 
little  power  ?  Far  among  the  moorlands 
and  the  rocks,  —  far  in  the  darkness  of  the 
terrible  streets, — these  feeble  florets  are 
lying,  with  all  their  fresh  leaves  torn,  and 
their  stems  broken  —  will  you  never  go  down 
to  them,  nor  set  them  in  order  in  their  little 
fragrant  beds,  nor  fence  them,  in  their  trem- 
bling, from  the  fierce  wind  ?  Shall  morning 
follow  morning,  for  you,  but  not  for  them ; 
and  the  dawn  rise  to  w^atch,  far  away,  those 
frantic  Dances  of  Death ;  i  but  no  dawn 
rise  to  breathe  upon  these  living  banks  of 
wild  violet,  and  woodbine,  and  rose ;  nor  call 
to  you,  through  your  casement,  —  call  (not 
giving  you  the  name  of  the  English  poet's 
lady,  but  the  name  of  Dante's  great  Matilda, 
who  on  the  edge  of  happy  Lethe,  stood, 
wreathing  flowers  with  flowers),  saying, — 

'*  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 

For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 

And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad 

And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown  "? 

Will  you  not  go  down  among  them  ?  — 
among  those  sweet  living  things,  whose  new 


I    See  note  p.  57. 

128 


OF   QUEENS'    GARDENS 

courage,  sprung  from  the  earth  with  the 
deep  colour  of  heaven  upon  it,  is  starting 
up  in  strength  of  goodly  spire ;  and  whose 
purity,  washed  from  the  dust,  is  opening, 
bud  by  bud,  into  the  flower  of  promise ;  — 
and  still  they  turn  to  you  and  for  you,  "  The 
Larkspur  listens  —  I  hear,  I  hear  1  And  the 
Lily  whispers  —  I  wait." 

95.  Did  you  notice  that  I  missed  two 
lines  when  I  read  you  that  first  stanza ;  and 
think  that  I  had  forgotten  them  ?  Hear 
them  now :  — 

"  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown. 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate,  alone." 

Who  is  it,  think  you,  who  stands  at  the 
gate  of  this  sweeter  garden,  alone,  waiting 
for  you  ?  Did  you  ever  hear,  not  of  a  Maud, 
but  a  Madeleine,  who  went  down  to  her 
garden  in  the  dawn,  and  found  One  waiting 
at  the  gate,  whom  she  supposed  to  be  the 
gardener  ?  Have  you  not  sought  Him  often  ; 
sought  Him  in  vain,  all  through  the  night; 
sought  Him  in  vain  at  the  gate  of  that  old 
garden  where  the  fiery  sword  is  set  ?  He  is 
never  there ;  but  at  the  gate  of  M/j  garden 
He  is  waiting  always  —  waiting  to  take  your 
hand  —  ready  to  go  down  to  see  the  fruits 
of  the  valley,  to  see  whether  the  vine  has 

129 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 

flourished,  and  the  pomegranate  budded. 
There  you  shall  see  with  Him  the  little 
tendrils  of  the  vines  that  His  hand  is  guid- 
ing—  there  you  shall  see  the  pomegranate 
springing  where  His  hand  cast  the  sanguine 
seed;  —  more:  you  shall  see  the  troops  of 
the  angel  keepers  that,  with  their  wings, 
wave  away  the  hungry  birds  from  the  path- 
sides  where  He  has  sown,  and  call  to  each 
other  between  the  vineyard  rows,  "  Take  us 
the  foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the 
vines,  for  our  vines  have  tender  grapes." 
Oh  —  you  queens  —  you  queens;  among  the 
hills  and  happy  greenwood  of  this  land  of 
yours,  shall  the  foxes  have  holes  and  the 
birds  of  the  air  have  nests;  and  in  your 
cities  shall  the  stones  cry  out  against  you, 
that  they  are  the  only  pillows  where  the  Son 
of  Man  can  lay  His  head  ? 


^^ 


PRINTED  BY 
SMITH  6-  SALE 
PORTLAND 
(MAINE 


M 
W05 


